Destination and Purpose Denominations in Developing Tourist Relationship Management (TRM) Framework

Abstract

Conventional relationship management frameworks, namely Customer Relationship
Management has been inadequate to explain the critical dyadic relationship between the
tourists and the tourism service providers, although the dimensions of the same are
relevant enough to lend partial support to understand the relationship. There seems to be
some missing factors, still unexplored, which may be pivotal in understanding this
relationship. This study attempts to develop a tourist relationship management (TRM)
framework by assimilating assorted dimensions. The basic foundation of the TRM
framework will be rested on customer relationship management (CRM) model with
justified addition of dimensions compatible to tourism dynamics. The study used survey
method, with adequate justification of sampling & scaling procedures and factorconstructs measurements, to identify and assess the significance of ‘destination’ and
‘purpose or motivation to travel’ as decisive elements in the relationship architecture. The
study confirmed convergence of dimensions to justify TRM framework with adequate
internal reliability and validity of the scale. The default model also holds good to lend
support to the theoretical findings.