The role of trust in cruise passenger behavioral intentions: The moderating effects of the cruise line brand

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a framework to investigate the relationship between perceived value, satisfaction, trust and behavioral intentions and the moderator effect of the cruise line on cruise passengers’ perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach – A structural model was developed. In order to verify the hypotheses, a total of 729 cruise passengers were sampled. The study of the data used structural equation models by means of a multi-group analysis.

Findings – The results of this study suggest significant paths to increase behavioral intentions: perceived service quality? satisfaction? trust?. In addition, it has been proved that the cruise line moderates the relationships between constructs in most of the relationships in the two cruise lines analyzed.

Practical implications – The differences in the relationships of perceived service quality with overall satisfaction, trust and behavioral intentions suggest that one of the cruise lines analyzed ought to make decisions to improve the installations and the services on board the ships. These decisions involve substantial investments which affect, as well as the marketing management regarding the design of the product, the financial management and also the CEO.

Originality/value – Unlike earlier studies of cruise tourism carried out in Caribbean and Asian destinations, this study empirically tested a model of the formation of behavioral intentions which incorporates trust as a mediator variable between satisfaction and behavioral intentions and between perceived service quality and behavioral intentions in the Mediterranean. Also tests the moderator effect exercised by the cruise line on the consumers’ perception on the way to behavioral intentions.