All lives matter. An analysis of internationals' living conditions in Seoul, Korea, using an extended image–satisfaction–loyalty mechanism

Tae‐Hyoung Tommy Gim

Growth and Change, 2023, vol. 54, issue 3, 652-673

Abstract: We indirectly analyze the residential environment for long‐staying internationals in Seoul, Korea, by extending the image–satisfaction–loyalty mechanism widely used in tourism, specifically by examining the internationals' satisfaction and loyalty. We consider residential difficulties, sociodemographics, and survey years along with image as exogenous variables and evaluate satisfaction not only in terms of its absolute but also its relative level, which is the difference between absolute satisfaction (AS) and previous expectation. Tourism studies have measured loyalty using individuals' intention to recommend to another and their own revisit intention, but we evaluate the revisit intention with place attachment/hometown perception, which is more suitable for long‐staying residents. The variables are measured with 2016–2018 data from an annual quality of life survey for Seoul residents (n = 5279 individuals) and analyzed with structural equation modeling. Our results show that the conventionally used AS is associated only with recommendation intention, but the relative satisfaction (RS) both with recommendation intention and hometown perception. Regarding the exogenous variables, AS is substantially affected by image and RS is somewhat strongly influenced by residential difficulties. However, image is the principal determinant of loyalty level, whether recommendation intention or hometown perception. These findings confirm the applicability of the image–satisfaction–loyalty mechanism not only to short‐staying inbound tourists but also to long‐staying international residents.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.12664

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:growch:v:54:y:2023:i:3:p:652-673

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0017-4815

Access Statistics for this article

Growth and Change is currently edited by Dan Rickman and Barney Warf

More articles in Growth and Change from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().