ارزش مصرف کننده و تناسب تصویر از خود در مراحل مختلف مالکیت تقسیم زمانی

An understanding of customers’ perceptions of value is fundamental to the competitive nature of all industries. Using the timeshare resort sector as a context for our studies, we explore the ways in which consumers, grouped according to their timeshare ownership stage, perceive value. Data were collected from three samples: non-owners of timeshare, recent purchasers of timeshare, and longer-term timeshare owners. Value was shown to be multi-dimensional, with a stable pattern of eleven correlated value factors evident in all three samples. The groups differed in their assessments of the different dimensions of value. In all groups, however, value was positively correlated with attitudes and future intentions regarding timeshare. Self-image congruency explained additional criterion variance. The findings demonstrate that, even among consumers who have never used timeshare, value and self-image congruency are substantial and unique predictors of attitudes and intentions regarding this tourism product.

The identification, measurement and creation of customer value are fundamental to achieving a sustainable business (Ruiz, Gremler, Washburn, & Carrion, 2008). The tourism industry is multifaceted and approaches to understanding value can be achieved through in-depth sector studies. One growth area in tourism has been vacation or holiday membership/ownership clubs. Commonly referred to as timeshare, pre-purchased vacations represent a significant portion of the tourism accommodation industry worldwide (Upchurch & Lashley, 2006). Using the timeshare resort industry as a context for our studies, we have developed a comprehensive scale with which to measure value. In the current study, we further validate this scale and we explore the ways in which consumers, at different stages of ownership, perceive or derive value. In addition, we investigate the extent to which people hold images of themselves that are congruent with timeshare ownership, and how this self-image congruency differs with stage of timeshare ownership. We then test the capacity of value dimensions and self-image congruency to predict attitudes and intentions toward timeshare.

The study has made a number of important contributions to the consumer value-in-tourism literature. These include: (1) insights into the timeshare industry – a rich and important sector within tourism, but one that has not been extensively studied, (2) the consolidation of an eleven-factor model of consumer value applied to timeshare and the further validation of a self-report scale to measure these eleven value dimensions, (3) the inclusion of self-image congruency as a construct of interest both in itself and in combination with value, and (4) the use of samples of consumers at three stages of timeshare ownership and the demonstration of significant differences in the study variables as a function of ownership stage. We trust that the study encourages others to investigate further the factors that underpin consumer evaluations of tourism products at different stages of the purchase and consumption cycle.