Efigénio Rebelo

The customer loyalty plays a vital role within the Tourism and Hospitality industry. It is very important to make sure the customers are satisfied and remain as loyal as possible, because the loyal customers work as a good promotion tool as they spread the WoM (word of mouth) within their friends, family, relatives and others. On the contrary, not being satisfied to the service or product may translate into a negative feedback, which can lead to a bad image for the business of a certain destination. The main purpose of this study is to identify the variables that are significant to explain loyalty to Portugal, as a touristic destination. Moreover, this study also aims to quantify the impacts of those variables to the probability of different types of costumers being loyal to this destination. Based on an online survey which included significant number of travelers from six continents and travelers to Portugal were asked about their appreciation in different aspects. Then, all the data received through the survey was introduced in SPSS and analyzed using a binary logistic regression. Using the right modelling strategy, the authors have been able to find the appropriate model for the current study and that is overall high-quality infrastructure (transportations, gastronomy, information centers), appealing climate (humidity, temperature, sunny days) and satisfaction with price & marketing (travel packages, value for money, variety in travel products) can improve travelers’ loyalty to Portugal.