The impact of servicescape on cruiser experience and behavioural intentions. A conceptual framework

The concept of experience has been widely argued both in service and in tourism literature as an overall perception of various stimulus and events (Otto, Ritchie, 1996) able to influence the value perceived and the future behaviour (Fernandes, Neves, 2014). In the last years, the environmental elements of the servicescape have become important drivers to explain how consumers of service (or product) are immersed in an overall consumption experience. However, still little studies are focused on this issue in the tourist sector, even less in the cruise context (Wakefield and Blodgett, 1996; Kwortnik, 2007). In fact, cruise vacations could be considered a prototypical experiential product, as an amalgam of tangible and intangible benefits from the basic transportation, meal and entertainment to some more hedonistic ones with an emotional value (e.g.: escape, relax, socialization) (Kwortnik, 2007). Consequently, each of these elements can affect the overall experience, in terms of value perceived and behavioural intentions of passengers. The purpose of this study is to define an original framework on the role of servicescape as antecedent of customer experience by analysing its impact on behavioral intentions in cruise industry. The servicescape has been identified using Bitner's model (1992) adapting the original environmental elements to the cruise context. The research aims at exploring primarly the key factors of servicescape affecting the overall evaluation of service experience and behavioural intentions (intent to recommend and intent to return) and secondly, understanding the effect of these variables on the experience value perceived by the passengers. The findings of this paper are only the first step (explorative research) on the analysis of servicescape on cruiser experience. In the second step of our research, we would test the conceptual framework to sample of cruise passengers (directly on board or within two weeks from the vacation).