Relationship Between Customers Traveling with Children and Airline Brands: Evidence from Consumer Reviews
This study explores the impact of structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal resource constraints on travelers with children, particularly focusing on vulnerability and consumer-resource interactions in the airline service encounter. The goal is to develop inclusive service strategies for airline brands catering to this segment of travelers.
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Presentation Transcript
Exploring the relationship between customers Exploring the relationship between customers travelling with children and airline brands: travelling with children and airline brands: Evidence from SKYTRAX consumer reviews Evidence from SKYTRAX consumer reviews Jiyoon An, Ph.D. Asst. Professor of Marketing Broadwell College of Business & Economics Fayetteville State University @iCBR 2022
Introduction Travel as experience and service includes actions and reactions triggered through the human quest to see, to experience, and to know the world (Singh & Hollinshead 2021) Rise of non-traditional travelers Almost a half of travelers born in 80s and 90s had a family trip with children under 5 using online travel arrangements for an airline, hotel, and others (Travel Pulse 2018) Holiday needs and destination attributes (Khoo-Lattimore & Yang 2018; Song et al. 2020)
Introduction (Cont.) Travel through the lens of transformative service research (TSR) TSR for well-being of individuals and community with inclusive service delivery and design (Rosenbaum 2015) Travel reflects inequity and marginalization in control over resources in a society (Mura and Wijesinghe 2021) Accessible Tourism initiative o the ongoing endeavor to ensure tourist destinations, products, and services are accessible to all people, regardless of their physical limitations, disabilities, or age (United Nations 2022)
Literature Review Structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal resource constraints and inequity and marginalization in travel experience (Devile and Kastenholz 2018). Structural/environment resource constraints are lack of access to resources (e.g., equipment and information) Interpersonal resource constraints involve dependence on others and insufficient encouragements Intrapersonal resource constraints are emotional and cognitive capacities to engage with travel experience. Insights for evidence-based inclusive service strategies to address marginalization in airline brands to travelers with young children
Research Questions RQ1: How experienced vulnerability is shaped by structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal resource constraints? RQ2: What are the types of consumer-resource interaction in the travel service encounter to understand the resource constraints?
Methods Skytrax s airline customer reviews (2003-2015) with the interpretive language R Travelers w/ children (2855 customer reviews. 233 airlines, authors from 93 countries, 75.93% with economy class) Travelers w/o children (38541 customer reviews, 362 airlines, authors from 156 countries, 71.65% with economy class) Unstructured (e.g., text) and structured (e.g., consumer rating) data for empirical rigor (i.e., mixed-method study design) T-test for service rating, recommendation, and negative emotion (with AFINN lexicon method) to assess marginalization Negation text mining and multidimensional scaling to identify consumer- resource Interactions in service encounter o Negation words ( lack of , absence of or failure to (Duane et al. 2016, p. 864) to signal resource constraints and marginalization
T-test Results Service rating (p < 0.001) Traveler without children 6.09 Traveler with children 5.24 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6 6.2 Recommendation rating (p < 0.001) Traveler without children 0.54 Traveler with children 0.42 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 Negative emotion (p < 0.001) Traveler without children 3.11 Traveler with children 2.85 2.7 2.8 2.9 3 3.1 3.2
MDS Results Mapping Vulnerability: Consumer-Resource Interactions in Service Encounter
MDS results (Cont.) Cluster Resource constraint Diaper Representative Reviews [Traveler A] "When I went to change my daughter's diaper the sink in the rear bathroom was clogged and the trash was overflowing." [Traveler B] "After takeoff it became necessary for me to change my daughter's diaper. I pressed the flight attendant button and told the man that I needed to utilize the restroom with my daughter but since the lavatory was so small it was impossible to bring my 3 year old son with me." [Traveler C] "They did not honor any of the seats booked together when the tickets were bought and separated my kids from me on one of the flights" [Traveler D] "Despite numerous requests many weeks in advance we didn't get seats together on the outbound journey" [Traveler E] "When we landed in Toronto we had to wait about an hour and a half to get our strollers" [Traveler F] "On one leg of the flight they gave her back the stroller last and nearly made her miss her connection" [Traveler G] "The staff looked tired and unhappy they WERE unhelpful and unfriendly" [Traveler H] "Rude at check in. Rude and unhelpful at the gate and even on flight they held their tradition by attendants having domestic quarrels on the plane around passengers" [Traveler I] "A day before departure I was called to be informed that the flight 'might' be cancelled. The uncertainty helped make it a stressful day" [Traveler J] "When we eventually departed an hour late and after such a stressful boarding process there was not a hint of an apology from the Captain" [Traveler K] "Reserved kids meal never came because original flight was cancelled" [Traveler L] "We requested child meals at booking and did not get on way out so on return. My agent requested again but yet again this was ignored" [Traveler M] "The worst part however was absolutely no in-flight entertainment for a 6 hour flight. Added to this was the screaming child we had for the 6 hours - at the very least a movie would have taken my mind off this." [Traveler N] "My kids were bored and had no entertainment but me for 11 hours as their DS died while being used in the airport during the delay. This was a horrible flight for an adult but worse for a family with kids" Custer 1 Lack of equipment Seating assignment Stroller Cluster 2 Dependence on others Help Stress Meal Cluster 3 Lack of support service Entertainm ent
Discussions and Implications - Multi-level intervention strategy Upstream (Policy) Midstream Downstream (Individual) (Service and Communities) Implementing a policy to assign travelers with children as preferred seating arrangements Proposing airline industry-wide agreement for transporting a stroller Using algorithm to identify travelers with children and to assign preferred seating arrangements Complying the agreement for handling a stroller like a mobility support device (e.g., wheelchair) Monitoring and reporting the violation of the policy Enabling opportunities Assuring the implementation of the agreement Offering choice Communicating detailed up-to-date information on entertainment and meal for the flight Mandating a happy service program with in- flight app Accommodating the preference of meals and entertainment from travelers with children Preparing alternative arrangement for informed available entertainment and meal offerings. Acting as a co-creator of happy service program s value proposition Relieving suffering Educating cabin staffs for inclusive service and accessible travel service Fostering happiness
Thanks Please feel free to email me for any questions. jan@uncfsu.edu
