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Consumption-Based Emotional Responses Related to Satisfaction

Veronica Liljander and Maria Bergenwall

Correspondence: Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Department of

Marketing, PO Box 479, 00101 Helsinki, Finland. V. Liljander: Tel. +358-9-43133 288, Fax.

+358-9-43133 287, e-mail: veronica.liljander@shh.fi

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Consumption-Based Emotional Responses Related to Satisfaction

Abstract

The authors examine the impact of consumption-based emotions on perceived satisfaction in a

field study of charter holiday consumers. Eight emotions from Russell’s circumplex model of affect

are investigated for four parts of a charter holiday: the destination, hotel, guide(s) and return flight.

Analysis of the structure of emotions does not support Russell’s dimensions of pleasure and

arousal, but confirms other researchers’ findings of positive and negative affect. Of the discrete

emotions, happiness and excitement are found to have a positive effect and boredom and idleness

a negative effect on satisfaction. Emotional responses related to the hotel and destination have the

largest impact on overall satisfaction. Future research directions are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

High consumer satisfaction has been linked to positive consequences for the service organisation

in the form of increased consumer loyalty and higher profitability (Storbacka et al., 1994).

Hence, it is in the interest of every firm to monitor their customers’ perceived satisfaction with the

service offer and the underlying factors that affect it. In services research, perceived service

quality has usually been used as the only indicator of consumer satisfaction. However, there is a

growing body of literature which clearly indicates that the positive and negative emotions that

consumers associate with the service play an important role in forming satisfaction (Dubé et al.,

1996; Hui and Tse, 1996; Liljander and Strandvik, 1997; Koelemeijer et al., 1995; Price,

Arnould and Deibler, 1995; Price, Arnould and Tierney, 1995; Stauss and Neuhaus, 1997).

Generally, positive emotions have been found to enhance satisfaction. On the other hand, it is also

possible to combine high satisfaction with feelings that in other circumstances would have invoked

dissatisfaction. For example, Arnould and Price (1993) found that high satisfaction with river

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rafting was related to both extreme positive and extreme negative feelings. Thrill and excitement,

sometimes on the border of safety, made the trip memorable and satisfactory. In a hospital

setting, Dubé et al. (1996) also found that negative emotions in certain situations had a positive

effect on satisfaction. Oliver (1997) notes that although there are many studies on the structure of

emotions and consumer experienced emotions with advertising there is a lack of research on the

linkage between emotions and post-consumption variables like satisfaction.

Emotions can be divided into reactive and goal-directed emotions (Bagozzi et al., 1995; Brown

et al., 1997; Koelemeijer et al., 1995). If, for example, the delivered service exceeds the

promises made in the advertising, the consumer may react with positive emotions and high

satisfaction. Goal-directed emotions, on the other hand, are emotions that the consumer

consciously seeks to experience, for example by visiting an amusement park or going on a

holiday. However, other, more negative, types of emotions may also be anticipated/expected by

the consumer. One may, for example, anticipate feelings of anxiety when going to the dentist.

Services that are characterised by strong goal-directed positive emotions are particularly

important to note since the experienced emotions may constitute the main outcome of the service

(e.g., a concert, a movie). However, it should also be observed that all services may arouse

unplanned reactive emotions in the consumer. In addition, different segments of consumers may

react with different emotions to the same service, and because of service variability, one

consumer’s perceived service quality and experienced emotions may vary from one service

encounter to another. It is a challenge for service managers to understand the emotions that their

customers experience, and to manage the service in such a way that positive emotions are

promoted and negative emotions reduced. In order to better understand the role of emotions in

services, research is needed on different types of service encounters. The present study seeks to

increase our understanding of how experienced emotions affect consumer satisfaction with a

charter holiday.

Tourism services offer goal-directed emotions. Package holidays and different tourist attractions

are designed to excite consumers and give them memorable positive feelings, something out of the

ordinary. Although the consumer may wish for only positive goal-directed emotions, a holiday is

still full of service encounters which cannot be planned beforehand, and which may trigger both

unexpected positive and negative emotions which affect satisfaction.

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The main aim of this study was to investigate the structure of emotions as experienced by

consumers of a charter holiday in Spain, and the relation between experienced emotions and

satisfaction with the holiday. The consumer may have an endless variety of service experiences

during a holiday, and it is not possible to cover them all in one study. The empirical study was

limited to general perceptions of the destination, the hotel, the guide(s) and the flight home. The

emotions were selected from each of the eight quadrants in Russell’s circumplex model of affect

(Russell, 1980).

More specifically, the following research questions were asked: 1) What is the underlying

structure of the emotions in this service context? 2) Do consumers have different patterns of

emotions, and how are these related to satisfaction? 3) How do various experienced emotions

related to the hotel, destination, guide(s) and flight affect overall satisfaction? 4) How do

experienced emotions connected with the hotel, destination, guide(s) and flight affect overall

satisfaction with the holiday package as a whole?

Russell’s model of the structure of emotions is presented first, followed by a literature review of

previous studies on the relationship between emotions and satisfaction. The design of the

empirical study and its findings are then presented, and future research directions are discussed.

THE STRUCTURE OF EMOTIONS

Numerous definitions of emotions have been proposed in the psychology literature and no

consensus on any given definition has been reached. In view of the lack of research on

consumption emotions it may be harmful to use a too narrow definition of the concept at this stage

of research. A broad definition is proposed by Oliver (1997, p. 294) who suggests that “Emotion

includes arousal, various forms of affect, and cognitive interpretations of affect that may be given a

single description”. For example, Oliver’s definition encompasses the emotions ‘interest’ and

‘surprise’ that have also been referred to as ‘basic’ emotions in the psychology literature (Oliver

1997), while another recently proposed definition by Richins (1997) excludes them.

The basic structures of emotions and self-reported mood have been extensively studied within

psychology (c.f. Russell, 1980 and Watson and Tellegen, 1985 for reviews). Emotions have

generally been described as either discrete entities (Izard, 1972; 1977; 1991) or as on bipolar

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dimensions related to each other in a systematic universal fashion (Russell, 1980). Both Izard’s

and Russell’s sets of emotions have been used in consumer satisfaction studies, although Izard’s

DES scale is perhaps the most common. The DES scale has been criticised for the predominance

of negative emotions in the scale and for not taking into account the level of arousal. Thus it may

be noted that one of Richins’ (1997) goals when developing the Consumption Emotions Set

(CET) was to achieve an even spread in emotional space. The much earlier developed two-

dimensional circumplex model of affect that was used as a basis of the present study takes into

account both positive and negative emotions and the degree of arousal (Russell, 1980). Next the

model will be described in more detail.

According to Russell (1980), the interrelationships between different types of emotions are best

described by a spatial model in which eight affective components are organised in a circular

arrangement of pleasure-displeasure (misery), arousal-sleepiness, excitement-depression and

contentment-distress. Two of these pairs, i.e. pleasure - displeasure (misery) and arousal -

sleepiness are the main bipolar dimensions. The emotions fall on a circle in a two-dimensional

space in a compass like manner (Figure 1).

Displeasure Pleasure

Sleepiness

Arousal

contentmentdepression

distress excitement

Figure 1. Circular order of emotions

The emotions excitement, depression, contentment and distress help to define the quadrants of the

space. According to Russell, all words of affect can be defined as a combination of degree of

pleasure and degree of arousal. For example, excitement is defined as a combination of high

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pleasure and high arousal, and contentment as a combination of high pleasure and low arousal.

Polar co-ordinates for 28 affect words were created by giving the categories assigned scale co-

ordinates based on their theoretical circular ordering. Russell found support for the two bipolar

dimensions from several other studies on both verbal and non-verbal emotional expressions. He

also presented studies of his own that supported the circular order of emotions. Two small

samples of students were asked to sort 28 affect words (described as “words or phrases that

people use to describe their moods, feelings, affect or emotions”, Russell, 1980, p. 1164) into the

eight categories: arousal, excitement, pleasure, contentment, sleepiness, depression, misery and

distress. The subjects were then asked to place these categories in a circular order so that words

opposite each other would describe opposite feelings, and words close to each other would

describe similar feelings. Overall, the data fitted the model well. A reanalysis reported elsewhere

also resulted in a very similar solution. Finally, in a study on self-reported mood, 343 students

rated how they felt on a particular day on 518 affect words. The data was analysed with

regression and factor analysis, and the results supported the findings from the other studies. The

factor analysis yielded two factors which included the elements of the two dimensions in the

circular model.

Watson and Tellegen (1985), however, question the applicability of Russell’s dimensions on self-

reported mood. By reanalysing a large number of previously reported studies they concluded that

the structure of mood is best described by the two bipolar dimensions, positive and negative

affect. Consequently, they rotated the axes of pleasantness and arousal by 45°, making positive

and negative affect the primary dimensions while placing pleasure-displeasure and arousal-

sleepiness in between. These results can be compared with the factor structures obtained on

emotional responses in consumer studies. When both Izard’s DES scale (Liljander and Strandvik,

1997; Oliver, 1993; Oliver and Westbrook, 1993; Westbrook, 1983) and other scales (Dubé et

al., 1996) have been used, emotions have consistently been divided into positive and negative

affect. However, studies on consumption emotions differ from most of the structure studies in

psychology in that fewer emotions have been included, sometimes only one measure for positive

and one for negative affect (e.g. Price, Arnould and Deibler, 1995). Using a limited number of

emotions also limits the possibilities of finding bipolar dimensions in the data (Watson and

Tellegen, 1985). In contrast to Watson and Tellegen’s findings, one study by Mano (1990) on

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self-reported mood and another by Mano and Oliver (1993) on product evaluation supported

Russell’s circumplex model of emotions.

It should also be noted that a conceptual distinction may be made between the consumer’s mood

state and the emotions that he/she experiences as the result of consuming a good or service.

Generally, emotions are considered more intense and stimulus specific than moods. Moods are

temporal and may be elicited and maintained without conscious awareness of the feeling state, its

cause or its influence on current activities (Clark and Isen, 1982; Gardner, 1985; Morris, 1989;

Oliver, 1997). The individual may be unaware of the state and continue to pursue his/her present

activities without interruption. Cohen and Areni (1991) suggest that emotions are connected with

specific stimuli, and represent a more intense and arousing affective state that demands attention.

The activity the individual pursues is interrupted and, in some cases, a behavioural response

occurs involuntarily. When the stimulus has been dealt with, the individual can again turn his/her

attention away from it and begin to focus on other tasks and objectives. However, a residue of

the earlier experienced emotion may still function as a mood. According to Elster (1996),

emotions are always preceded by cognition of what produced them. This view of emotions, which

is generally labelled the cognitive approach (Strongman, 1996), and is supported by several

researchers in psychology (e.g. Cohen and Areni, 1991; Lazarus, 1984; Lazarus and Smith,

1988), has also been embraced by consumer satisfaction researchers. An exception is found in a

study by Alford and Sherrell (1996), where consumer affect is proposed to precede perceptions

of service performance.

Since the customer may be unaware of his/her mood, it is usually difficult to isolate mood from

stimulus elicited emotions. Even a mood which is characterised by quite strong negative or

positive feelings may be difficult to isolate from consumption-related emotions. The strength of

positive and negative feelings in the consumer’s mood state, may to a lesser or stronger degree,

affect how he/she experiences a service by strengthening positive or negative emotions.

Consumers who have experienced a happy event in their lives may be in a good mood for many

days. The good mood may make them experience a service as better than they normally would

have, or they may tolerate poorer service without it being reflected in their satisfaction scores.

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EMOTIONS AND SATISFACTION

Emotions have been linked to satisfaction in several ways, but three main streams of research can

be identified: 1) satisfaction is in itself seen as an emotional response to a product (Cadotte et al.,

1983; Dabholkar, 1995; Oliver, 1993); 2) emotions are treated as a mediator between cognitive

evaluations, such as perceived product performance or disconfirmation of some comparison

standard, and overall satisfaction; and 3) emotions are modelled as an independent factor

contributing to the level of perceived satisfaction.

One satisfaction scale which includes emotions is the ‘delighted-terrible’ scale recommended by

Westbrook (1980)1. Another example of satisfaction measured as emotions can be found in a

study by Cadotte et al. (1983), where a summary measure of 12 bipolar ‘feeling scales’ was

used to indicate satisfaction. Dabholkar (1995), on the other hand, challenges the affective

content of satisfaction and suggests that it is only temporal. According to her, the affective aspects

are short-lived, while cognitive evaluations will be remembered over a longer period.

Consequently, she argues that since both satisfaction and service quality include cognitive

evaluations, but only satisfaction includes affective components, the two concepts will be distinct

in the short-term, but will overlap in the long run. She finds some support for these ideas in a

study on retail customers. However, it should be noted that, although the affective component

may be temporal in normal circumstances, and that consumers often feel no emotions at all when

consuming a service (Price, Arnould and Deibler, 1995), this may not hold for highly positive or

negative emotions connected with critical incidents. In particular, strong negative emotions related

to negative incidents may still be easily retrieved each time the consumer remembers the incident.

It is also possible that the structure emotions in satisfaction changes over time from, for example,

satisfaction as delight to satisfaction as contentment (c.f. Oliver, 1997; Stauss and Neuhaus,

1997).

Other researchers have treated affect as either a mediator of satisfaction or an independent

contributor. A study by Koelemeijer et al. (1995) supported emotions, satisfaction and service

quality as independent constructs. They also suggested that dis/satisfaction is a generalised

emotion that differs from more specific ones. They tested two different models: a ‘two-sources’

model and a ‘two-route’ model. The ‘two-sources’ model assumes that emotions and perceived

service quality have independent effects on consumer dis/satisfaction, which in turn affects

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behavioural intentions. The second model assumes that service quality influences both emotions

and consumer dis/satisfaction, which both influence behavioural intentions. Both models were

supported for goal-directed emotions. However, reactive emotions did not have an independent

effect on consumer satisfaction. Other researchers have also found that the emotions experienced

by consumers when consuming a good (Oliver, 1993; Oliver and Westbrook, 1993) or a service

(Liljander and Strandvik, 1997) add to the explanation of consumer satisfaction.

Researchers have also found support for emotions as a mediator of post-consumption evaluation.

Mano and Oliver (1993) found that positive and negative affect mediated the effects of both

utilitarian and hedonic evaluations on satisfaction. A study on service waits by Hui and Tse (1996)

showed that affective responses to different lengths of wait mediated the effects of the wait

condition on evaluations of service preference and favourability.

Several studies have used Izard’s Differential Emotions Scale (DES) (Izard, 1972; 1977) for

measuring consumers’ reactive emotions (Hausknecht, 1988; Liljander and Strandvik, 1997;

Oliver, 1993; Oliver and Westbrook, 1993; Westbrook, 1983). Factor analysis of the Izard

scale typically yields two factors: negative and positive affect (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997;

Westbrook, 1987). In two empirical studies, one on automobiles and one on a Principles of

Marketing course, Oliver (1993) found that attribute satisfaction was strongly related to positive

affect, and attribute dissatisfaction to negative affect. Positive and negative affect also influenced

(positively/negatively) overall product satisfaction. Similar results were obtained by Hausknecht

(1988), who combined critical incidents concerning consumer experiences in general with a 75-

item list of emotions, and found that feelings of satisfaction were best characterised by the

emotions interest, joy and surprise, while dissatisfaction was connected with anger, disgust and

surprise.

However, to get a deeper understanding of the relation between affect and satisfaction, there is a

need to look at more detailed profiles of affective reactions. It should be noted that negative affect

does not always lead to dissatisfaction (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997; Oliver and Westbrook,

1993; Westbrook and Oliver, 1991). Westbrook and Oliver (1991), for example, found five

clusters of emotions related to car ownership: Happy/Content, Pleasant surprise, Unemotional,

Unpleasant surprise, and Angry/Upset. Although satisfaction varied between the clusters, all the

owners were at least somewhat satisfied. In two other studies (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997;

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Oliver and Westbrook, 1993), only clusters of hostile/upset and angry/humiliated consumers

expressed dissatisfaction. The studies indicate that some negative affect can be absorbed by

consumers. They may also be satisfied without any apparent positive emotions (Price, Arnould

and Deibler, 1995; Westbrook and Oliver, 1991).

DATA COLLECTION

The data for our study were collected on four flights from the Canary Islands to Finland in

November 1995. The tourists were returning from six different resorts: Lanzarote (1 resort), Gran

Canaria (three resorts) and Teneriffe (two resorts).

A student2 personally distributed and collected the data on the first two flights. For the third and

fourth flights, the questionnaires were distributed during the bus journey to the airport and

collected by the stewardesses on board the aeroplane towards the end of the flight. All the flights

were made during the day time and their length was approximately six hours. During the flight the

passengers were served lunch with drinks, they had an opportunity to watch video films and listen

to music, as well as to buy tax-free products. Despite these interruptions there was ample time for

them to fill out the questionnaires. Each flight had 200-250 passengers and, the return rate of

questionnaires was about 30%. Although the flight was fairly long in duration, many passengers

did not feel like using their time for answering a two-page questionnaire. Many families with

children declined to participate in the study. On the first flight 65 questionnaires were returned, on

the second flight 71, on the third flight 68, and on the fourth flight 70. Of the 274 questionnaires

which were returned, 258 were retained for analysis. The majority of the respondents (65%)

were women.

The questionnaire was designed not to exceed two A4 pages. The questions concerned emotions

experienced and perceived satisfaction. The emotion measures were repeated for the destination,

the hotel, the guide(s) and the flight home. The following constructs were measured:

Emotions: The tourists were asked to what degree they had experienced eight different

emotions3 during the time spent at the destination, at the hotel, with the guide(s) and on the flight

home. A 7-point intensity scale was used, ranging from “I have not experienced the emotion at

all” to “ I have strongly experienced the emotion”. The emotions were: Happiness, Excitement,

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Calmness, Surprise, Idleness, Boredom, Sadness, and Fear. They represent both axes of

Russell’s (1980) and Watson and Tellegen’s (1985) circular models of affect. Figure 2 shows the

emotions ordered according to Russell’s bipolar dimensions of degree of arousal and

pleasantness. Watson and Tellegen’s main dimensions of positive and negative affect are also

shown in the figure.

Displeasure Pleasure

Sleepiness

Arousal

idleness

calmnessboredom

sadness

fear excitement

surprise

happiness

(Low positiveaffect)

(High negativeaffect)

(High positiveaffect)

(Low negative affect)

Figure 2. Circular order of the eight emotions used in the study

Satisfaction: Holistic measures of satisfaction were used. Satisfaction with service attributes, or

dimensions, or perceived quality of detailed parts of the service were not asked for. The following

measures were collected:

Overall satisfaction: The tourists were asked how satisfied they were with the trip as a whole on

a 7-point scale ranging from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”. The same scale was used for

all satisfaction measures.

Satisfaction with the destination: The tourists were asked separately for their overall

satisfaction with the destination, and how satisfied they were with the recreational services. A

direct disconfirmation measure using an experience-based norm (Cadotte et al., 1983) was also

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included. The tourists were asked to compare the present destination with previously experienced

destinations, and to evaluate the extent to which the current destination was worse or better than

the others on a 7-point scale.

Satisfaction with the hotel: Satisfaction with the hotel was measured as overall satisfaction with

the hotel, as satisfaction with the services performed by the personnel, and as satisfaction with the

location.

Satisfaction with the guide(s): One overall satisfaction measure was collected for the tour

guide(s). The tourists were also asked to compare the currently experienced guide(s) with

previously experienced guides on a 7-point scale ranging from “worse” to “better”. Some of the

tourists had only experienced the guide(s) on the bus between the airport and the hotel, while

others had been on one or more of the guided tours as well. The extent of interaction with the

guide(s) was not asked for and, thus, cannot be taken into account when analysing the data.

Satisfaction with the flight home: The tourists were asked for their overall satisfaction with the

flight home, and with the airline’s personnel on board. In addition they were asked to compare

the present flight with previously experienced charter flights on a 7-point scale ranging from

“worse” to “better”. Since charter flights may differ from normal scheduled flights, only previously

experienced charter flights were used as the comparison standard.

FINDINGS

The analyses were performed using SPSS for Windows 7.0 and 7.5. The dispersion of the scores

for the different variables are presented in Table III in the Appendix. The means and standard

deviations are also given. It can be noted that all the satisfaction measures are skewed toward the

positive values of the scale. Only around 10% of the tourists marked some degree of

dissatisfaction with the holiday as a whole, or with the destination, hotel, guide or flight. Only the

overall satisfaction measures are used in the analyses. Similarly, the emotions of happiness,

excitement and calmness are skewed towards the upper values of the scale, indicating that the

tourists had felt these emotions, while those of surprise, sadness, fear, boredom and idleness are

skewed towards the lower end of the scale, indicating a general lack of these emotions.

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One-way analyses of variance were performed on the data to find out to what extent the six

destinations differed on customer perceived satisfaction and emotions. Overall satisfaction with

the destination, the guide(s), the hotel, and the holiday as a whole differed between some of the

destinations. No differences in overall satisfaction were found between the four different flights.

For the emotions, effects were only found for experienced idleness at destination and experienced

happiness, excitement and calmness with reference to the guides. Hence, it may be concluded

that, although the six destinations did give rise to different degrees of perceived satisfaction, this is

not directly reflected in the emotions. This can be explained by the possibility that the tourists may

have experienced different patterns of emotions, and that these patterns are connected with

different satisfaction scores.

The analyses of the data are organised in the following way. Firstly, the results of multidimensional

scaling and factor analysis are presented. Secondly, the data is analysed for correlation between

emotions and satisfaction. Thirdly, the emotions are cluster-analysed in order to find out if there

are different patterns, and if these can be distinguished according to the customers’ satisfaction

scores.

The Structure of emotions

The structure of the emotions scales was first examined by multidimensional scaling (Euclidean

distance), by calculating dissimilarity data from the multivariate data. The analysis is equivalent to

a principal components analysis (Norušis, 1993). Figure 3 shows the resulting 2-dimensional plot

of the eight emotions for the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight. Kruskal’s stress was 0.12 and

the squared correlation coefficient (RSQ) 0.97, both indicating a very good fit.

The results are limited by the small number of emotions that were included in the study. Although

there is not as distinct a circular order as found by Russel (1980) and Mano (1990), the two

dimensions suggested by Russell are distinguishable in the plot. The vertical axis, or Dimension 1,

corresponds to his ‘Arousal-Sleepiness’ dimension, while the horizontal axis, or Dimension 2,

corresponds to the ‘pleasure-displeasure’ dimension. ‘Excitement’ (e1-4), ‘happiness’ (h1-4)

and ‘calmness’ (c1-4) are pleasurable emotions, but represent different degrees of arousal.

‘Surprise’ (su1-4), ‘idleness’ (i1-4), ‘boredom’ (b1-4), ‘sadness’ (s1-4) and ‘fear’ (f1-4) are

less pleasurable emotions, and also represent different degrees of arousal. Excitement and

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surprise are the most arousing emotions, while idleness, calmness and boredom are the least

arousing.

Note that the emotions are in the expected circular order of surprise (north), excitement (north-

east), happiness (east), calmness (south-east), and idleness, boredom, sadness and fear (south to

west). These last four are clustered rather thickly on the western side of the horizontal axis. In

other respects the plot is fairly similar to Figure 2. When the overall measures of satisfaction with

the hotel, destination, guide and flight were added to the MDS analysis all measures of satisfaction

were placed directly on the second dimension, together with happiness. The results thus

confirmed findings by other researchers that when satisfaction is added to the circumplex model it

is placed near to happiness and pleasure (Oliver 1997).

Dimension 1

3210-1-2

Dim

ensi

on 2

1.0

.5

0.0

-.5

-1.0

-1.5

su1su3

su2su4

f1

c1

b1

e1

i1

s1h1

f2

c2

b2

e2

i2s3

h3

f2

c2

b2

e2

i2

s2h2

f4

c4

b4

e4

i4

s4

h4

h = happiness, s = sadness, su = surprise, i =idleness, e = excitement, b = boredom, c = calmness, f = fear,1 = hotel, 2 = destination, 3 = guide(s), 4 = flight

Figure 3. Multidimensional scaling of emotions

The eight emotions were also factor analysed to see if they could be reduced to a smaller number

of dimensions, and if these would correspond to Russell’s dimensions of pleasure-displeasure and

degree of arousal, as indicated by the plot in Figure 3. Russell used both oblique and orthogonal

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rotation in his study, and found no difference between the two solutions, since the two dimensions

were not correlated (Russell, 1980). No differences were found between the two types of

rotation, and the results from the orthogonal rotation are presented. The eight emotions were

factor analysed separately for the destination, the hotel, the guide and the flight home, and

reliability coefficients were computed. The eigenvalues indicated that four factors were too many

for this data set, and when three factors were extracted, the third factor explained only a small

proportion of the total variance. Both three- and two-factor solutions are presented in Table I.

Table I. Three- and two-factor solutions for emotions. The factor loadings are multiplied by100.

Emotions Destination Hotel Guide Flight

F. 1 F. 2 F. 3 F. 1 F. 2 F. 3 F. 1 F. 2 F. 3 F. 1 F. 2 F. 3

Happiness 75 81 86 79

Excitement 78 85 88 77

Calmness 78 61 77 71

Sadness 72 67 65 75

Fear 83 82 84 80

Boredom 87 88 85 89

Idleness 82 86 83 87

Percent of variance 36 21 14 35 23 16 38 30 10 32 24 16

Coefficient alpha 0.67 0.77 0.50 0.82 0.64 0.55 0.79 0.79 0.74 0.85 0.63 0.56

Emotions Destination Hotel Guide Flight

Factor1 Factor2 Factor1 Factor2 Factor1 Factor2 Factor1 Factor2

Happiness 83 85 87 86

Excitement 84 86 88 81

Calmness 59 50 77 46

Sadness 73 72 83 63

Fear 65 64 77 65

Boredom 69 79 83 81

Idleness 69 70 82 75

Percent of variance 36 21 35 23 38 30 32 25

Coefficient alpha 0.67 0.66 0.70 0.64 0.82 0.79 0.68 0.63

Because the emotion ‘surprise’ loaded on several factors and lowered the reliability statistics, it

was left out of the analyses. Surprise can be experienced in both a positive and a negative sense,

and although it seems to have been used without further specification in several previous studies

(e.g. Evrard and Aurier, 1994; Hausknecht, 1988; Westbrook and Oliver, 1991), it facilitates the

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analysis if it is specified as either positive or negative surprise. Oliver (1997) also notes that the

emotion surprise is valence-neutral and requires a label. For example, in the study by Liljander

and Strandvik (1997) it was explicitly defined as positive surprise, and then clearly loaded with

the other positive emotions.

The similarities of the factors across the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight are obvious. When a

two-factor rather than a three-factor solution was produced, the factor for positive emotions

(happiness, excitement and calmness) remained intact, while the two factors consisting of

sadness/fear and boredom/idleness were joined into one factor of negative emotions. Thus, it can

be noted that the two-factor solutions do not correspond to Russell’s two dimensions of

pleasure-displeasure and degree of arousal, and bear a closer resemblance to Watson and

Tellegen’s dimensions of positive and negative affect. These results are also consistent with other

research on consumption emotions in which Izard’s DES scales have been used and two factors

of positive and negative affect have been found (e.g. Westbrook, 1987; Liljander and Strandvik,

1997). When Watson and Tellegen (1985) reanalysed previous studies of self-reported mood,

they found that positive affect consistently emerged as the primary factor of emotions. These

results differ from theirs in that positive affect emerged as the first factor only for the emotions

related to the destination.

The factor positive affect consists of emotions which are labelled high positive affect (excitement),

pleasantness (happiness) and low negative affect (calmness) in Watson and Tellegen’s model. It is

easy to see why these emotions were experienced as positive emotions on a holiday. Calmness

may be a very desirable emotion when one wants to have a good, relaxing holiday. The four

emotions that were loaded on negative affect are less desirable: sadness, fear, boredom and

idleness. However, it should be noted that some consumers may consider idleness a positive

holiday emotion. It was also noted earlier that, in some circumstances, fear can be combined with

positive excitement (Price, Arnould and Tierney 1995). However, sadness and boredom are

unlikely to be considered positive emotions in any circumstances.

The proportion of the total variance that was explained by the two factors is also similar to that in

Watson and Tellegen (1985), who found that one half to three quarters of the variance could be

explained by positive and negative affect. The factors here explained between 57% and 68% of

the total variance, but they had low reliability coefficients: 0.70 or less for the destination, the hotel

17

and the flight. The recommended levels for the coefficient alpha varies depending on the research

purpose. Although coefficients of 0.6 are often considered acceptable (Nunnally, 1978), Peterson

(1994) gives stricter guidelines: a coefficient of around 0.7 may be accepted for preliminary

research, around 0.8 is considered moderately high and adequately reliable for basic research,

while 0.9 or higher is considered highly reliable and is the recommended level for applied

research. The results of the present study may have been affected by the very general context

given for the sources of the emotions. Both the interpretation of the emotions and their sources

may vary between persons.

Patterns of emotion and satisfaction

Clusters of emotions have previously been studied by Westbrook and Oliver (1991) and Oliver

and Westbrook (1993) in two studies on car owners, and by Liljander and Strandvik (1997) in a

study on employment services. These studies were based on Izard’s DES scale. Four to six

different clusters were found, ranging from mainly negative emotions to very positive ones. All

three studies also found clusters of consumers who had experienced a very limited number of any

type of emotions. Another common factor in the studies was that consumer satisfaction was found

to be relatively high in all the clusters. Not even the consumers with the highest negative emotions

could be labelled dissatisfied, only less satisfied than the others. On the other hand, Liljander and

Strandvik (1997) found that only in the ‘angry/humiliated’ group did emotions directly affect

satisfaction, i.e. negative emotions lowered the satisfaction score.

The present data was cluster analysed separately for the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight.

‘Surprise’ was dropped from the analyses because its mean did not differ between the clusters in

any of the two-cluster solutions or in most of the three-cluster solutions. The two-cluster solutions

could generally be described as having one cluster with high positive and low negative emotions,

and another cluster with some presence of all the emotions. Four-cluster solutions were

characterised by two of the clusters being quite similar in outline: either one scale value apart from

the others, or with a larger difference on one of the emotions. The three-cluster solutions are

presented in Figure 4. The mean satisfaction scores for each cluster are also given. There are only

small differences between the clusters in the scores.

18

Only the clusters of ‘delighted’ consumers are similar across the destination, hotel, guide(s) and

flight. It is also the largest cluster in all four cases. These consumers had strong feelings of

happiness, excitement and calmness, and only a small amount of idleness, boredom, sadness or

fear. In this study, only the emotions connected with the guide(s) yield an ‘emotionless’ cluster.

Note, however, that there was almost no difference in satisfaction means between the emotionless

group and the third cluster showing moderate strength of all emotions.

Another way of looking at patterns of emotion and satisfaction would be to investigate to what

extent different satisfaction scores can be related to different patterns of emotion (see Dubé, 1990

and Stauss and Neuhaus, 1997 for examples of the use of pre-specified affective categorisations

in questionnaires). However, the present study would have needed a bigger sample including a

larger number of dissatisfied customers in order to find out if customers with the same satisfaction

score experienced different kinds of emotional patterns. An exploratory analysis of satisfaction

scores which had an adequate number of observations revealed that different emotional patterns

can be found within one satisfaction score.

19

Destination

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HAPPY EXCITED CALM IDLE BORED SAD AFRAID

cluster 1 (131)

cluster 2 (80)

cluster 3 (46)

Satisfaction with destination

5.3 (cluster 2)

5.8 (cluster 3)6.3 (cluster 1)

Hotel

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HAPPY EXCITED CALM IDLE BORED SAD AFRAID

cluster 1 (149)

cluster 2 (61)

cluster 3 (38)

Satisfaction with hotel

4.7 (cluster 2)

5.8 (cluster 1)5.2 (cluster 3)

Guide

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HAPPY EXCITED CALM IDLE BORED SAD AFRAID

cluster 1 (139)

cluster 2 (39)

cluster 3 (57)

Satisfaction with guide

4.8 (cluster 2)

6.0 (cluster 1)5.1 (cluster 3)

Figure 4. Four diagrams of clusters of experienced emotions at thedestination, hotel, with the guide and during the flight.

Flight

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HAPPY EXCITED CALM IDLE BORED SAD AFRAID

cluster 1 (109)

cluster 2 (99)

cluster 3 (47)

Satisfaction with flight

5.5 (cluster 2)

6.1 (cluster 1)

5.9 (cluster 3)

20

Discrete emotions and satisfaction

First, it may be pointed out that all the satisfaction measures were significantly correlated, although

the strength of the correlation varied. Overall satisfaction with the holiday correlated most highly with

destination satisfaction (0.66) and least with guide satisfaction (0.25). Correlations between overall

holiday satisfaction and hotel and flight satisfaction were of equal strength (0.42 and 0.43). These

results should be interpreted with some caution since it is not known to what extent they are affected

by the fact that the questionnaires were answered on the flight home. The correlation between flight

and overall holiday satisfaction seems to be inflated. Although the success of a charter holiday can be

said to be the result of the combination of choosing the right destination and a suitable hotel, having

good guides on tours and enjoying the last moments on the flight home, different customers may well

weight these parts differently. Most tour operators use the same national airline, and although some

tourists may choose a specific operator because of the airline, the choice of destination and hotel are

likely to be more important. On the other hand, the airline may genuinely have a large effect on

overall holiday satisfaction by giving a last impression of the holiday. A good flight may make

consumers remember the holiday with warm feelings, while a disappointing flight makes them

remember all the negative aspects of the trip. The small correlation between guide satisfaction and

overall satisfaction does not necessarily mean that the guides are not important. If one looks at the

dispersion of the satisfaction scores one can see that the tourists were in fact very satisfied with the

guides’ performance. It should also be remembered that when negative critical incidents occur on a

holiday, the guides are of paramount importance in solving the problems to the tourist’s satisfaction.

In a study of consumer perceptions of tour leaders at three different holiday destinations, Mossberg

(1995) shows that the leaders are important contributors to consumer satisfaction.

The correlations between discrete emotions and satisfaction are reported in Table II. All the

intercorrelations are not reported. The upper part of the table shows the correlations between the

emotions related to the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight, and satisfaction with these. Thus the first

column reports the correlation between emotions connected with the destination and overall

destination satisfaction, the second row reports the correlation between emotions connected with the

hotel and overall hotel satisfaction, etc. The lower part of the table shows the correlations between

the emotions for the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight, and overall satisfaction with the trip. The

21

first column shows the correlation between emotions connected with the destination and overall

satisfaction with the trip, etc.

Table II. Correlations between satisfaction and emotions

EmotionsSatisfaction with

destinationSatisfaction with

hotelSatisfaction with

guideSatisfaction with

flight home

Happiness 0.41** 0.37** 0.55** 0.34**

Excitement 0.38** 0.24** 0.42** 0.18**

Calmness 0.26** 0.19** 0.33** 0.11

Surprise -0.05 -0.19** -0.10 -0.18**

Sadness -0.35** -0.27** -0.24** -0.19**

Fear -0.25** -0.18** -0.10 -0.01

Boredom -0.45** -0.35** -0.26** -0.31**

Idleness -0.31** -0.31** -0.27** -0.27**

EmotionsDestination emotionoverall satisfaction

with the trip

Hotel emotionoverall satisfaction

with the trip

Guide emotionoverall satisfaction

with the trip

Flight emotionoverall satisfaction

with the trip

Happiness 0.42** 0.39** 0.17* 0.27**

Excitement 0.31** 0.18** 0.07 0.19**

Calmness 0.24** 0.14* 0.09 0.15*

Surprise -0.10 -0.09 -0.03 -0.12

Sadness -0.37** -0.32** -0.21* -0.35

Fear -0.22** -0.24** -0.06 -0.04

Boredom -0.40** -0.42** -0.27** -0.32

Idleness -0.29** -0.33** -0.16* -0.26

• = p<= 0.05, ** = p<= 0.01

As indicated by the factor analysis, however, and keeping in mind the low reliability scores, the

emotions may be divided into positive and negative ones. Looking at Table II one may draw the

general conclusion that the positively experienced emotions are positively correlated with satisfaction,

while negatively experienced emotions have the opposite effect. However, it should be noted that

only some of the correlations were statistically significant. Happiness, excitement and calmness may

also be interpreted as goal-directed emotions that the consumer wishes to experience when going on

a holiday. Of these happiness correlated most highly with satisfaction for all the four aspects of the

holiday investigated. Excitement and calmness were also positively related to satisfaction, and

especially to satisfaction with the destination and the guide(s). Somewhat surprisingly, calmness was

not related to satisfaction with the flight. As can be seen from the clusters presented in Figure 4,

22

perceptions of calmness varied only slightly within the flight emotion clusters, while there was a

greater variation within the destination, hotel and guide(s) clusters. Although the tourists had

experienced calmness on the flight, it was not an important determinant of satisfaction.

‘Surprise’ was included in the correlation analyses, but as can be seen in Table II, this emotion

correlated slightly only with hotel and guide satisfaction. Both correlations were negative, indicating

that the surprise was of a negative nature and therefore decreased satisfaction. The results for ‘fear’

resemble ‘surprise’ in that it generally had the smallest correlation compared with the other emotions.

The presence of fear had a slightly negative effect on satisfaction with the hotel and the destination,

but no effect on satisfaction with the guide(s) and the flight. Although it is well known that many

consumers feel some degree of fear of flying, this was not a significant factor in the present study.

Those who fear flying the most may not be likely to choose a holiday that includes flying, and those

who are nervous about flying may not wish to call it fear.

Of the other emotions, sadness, boredom and idleness were all negatively related to satisfaction.

Sadness and boredom were more closely related to (dis)satisfaction with the destination than with

the other parts of the holiday. These emotions could be labelled reactive emotions that are not sought

after on a holiday. Sadness may be difficult for the tour operator to alleviate, but boredom could be

avoided by offering different activities and by helping people choose a destination that suits their

needs best. Idleness could be experienced as a positive emotion by consumers who want to get

away from their work and stress, and who enjoy lying in the sun being idle. However, at least on an

aggregate level in this study, idleness was clearly experienced as a negative emotion which correlated

negatively with satisfaction.

The correlation between emotions and overall satisfaction with the trip, which are presented in the

lower part of Table II, shows that emotions experienced at the destination and at the hotel were

more important than those connected with the guide(s) and flight in forming overall holiday

satisfaction. Only a few of the emotions experienced with the guide(s) and on the flight correlated

significantly with satisfaction. Surprise with any part of the service did not correlate with overall

satisfaction.

The relation between satisfaction and emotions can also be illustrated by looking at different levels of

satisfaction and the related emotion scores. An example is given in Figure 5 for the destination.

23

Because of the limited number of observations, the scale values 1-3 have been combined into one

value and labelled ‘satisfaction = 3’.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7HAPPY

EXCITED

CALM

IDLEBORED

SAD

AFRAID

satisfaction = 3

satisfaction = 4

satisfaction = 5

satisfaction = 6

satisfaction = 7

Figure 5. Experienced emotions at different levels of overall satisfaction with destination

The figure shows that the higher the satisfaction score, the more positive and less negative emotions

the consumers experienced. The corresponding figures for the hotel, guide(s) and the flight were very

similar and are not presented. However, it can be noted that, for the flight, the relation between

satisfaction and the negative feelings of boredom and idleness was accentuated. Those who had

marked one of the three lowest points on the satisfaction scale for the flight had strong experiences of

boredom and idleness, while those who had marked the highest score for satisfaction had very low

experiences of boredom and idleness compared with in-between values for satisfaction.

The relation between discrete emotions and satisfaction was also investigated for each of the clusters

presented in Figure 4. In light of the small number of observations in some of the clusters, and the

low factor reliability scores, the results should be looked on as exploratory and no detailed figures

are presented. Correlation matrices showed that different emotions affected satisfaction in the

clusters. Despite the low reliabilities of the two factors (positive and negative emotions), the means

for these were computed from the data, and satisfaction within the different clusters was regressed

24

on the factors. The results showed that in all the ‘delighted’ clusters (first clusters), and cluster 2 for

destination, both the presence of positive and absence of negative feelings had a positive impact on

satisfaction. In none of the clusters did only negative feelings affect satisfaction, as was found by

Liljander and Strandvik (1997). There was no relation between emotions and satisfaction in four of

the clusters (cluster 3 for destination, clusters 2 and 3 for the hotel, cluster 3 for the flight). In the

remaining clusters, satisfaction was only affected by positive emotions (clusters 2 and 3 for guide(s)

and cluster 2 for flight). No general conclusions can be drawn from these results.

DISCUSSION

This study investigated the effect of eight discrete emotions on satisfaction with a holiday destination,

hotel, guide(s) and return flight. The emotions represented the eight quadrants of Russell’s (1980)

circumplex model of affect. However, the two affect dimensions that were found in the data did not

correspond to Russell’s dimensions of pleasure and arousal, but did to the dimensions of positive and

negative affect suggested by Watson and Tellegen (1985) for mood states, and also found in

research on consumption emotions connected with consumer goods (Westbrook and Oliver, 1991)

and services (Westbrook, 1987; Liljander and Strandvik, 1997).

A charter holiday could be described as a service which is high on goal-directed emotions, i.e.

pleasant, positive emotions that the holidaymaker wishes to experience, but which may also awake in

him/her many reactive, unplanned emotions. The parts of the holiday package that were investigated

here were all of an extended duration (Price, Arnould and Tierney, 1995), which means that there

was ample time for the consumers to experience different emotions in connection with them. More

positive than negative emotions were found to be associated with the different parts of the holiday,

and cluster analyses revealed a group of delighted consumers that was very similar across the

destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight. The delighted consumers were characterised by strong feelings

of happiness, excitement and calmness, and by only slight feelings of idleness, boredom, sadness or

fear. It was the largest cluster, which also seems natural in view of the nature of a holiday, where

mostly positive emotions should be experienced. None of the clusters contained consumers with only

strong negative emotions, but the presence of negative emotions was accompanied by a lower level

of satisfaction. The nature of the service seems to be such that some positive emotions are felt by all

consumers. In contrast to other studies in which researchers have reported clusters of consumers

with almost no emotions (Westbrook and Oliver, 1991 on car ownership and Liljander and

25

Strandvik, 1997 on employment agencies), here such a cluster was found only for the guide services.

On the basis of the findings from the effect of discrete emotions on satisfaction, it can also be

concluded that the most important task for tour organisers is to promote feelings of happiness in the

consumer and to avoid feelings of boredom and idleness.

Emotions experienced in relation to the destination and the hotel were found to be most strongly

related to overall satisfaction with the holiday. The destination can be considered the core service

that the customer buys when he/she purchases a holiday. The hotel is also an important part of the

holiday package. The customers interact with the hotel and the destination as a whole during their

entire stay, and their perceptions of these are crucial for overall satisfaction.

A limitation of the present study was that the triggers of emotions could not be identified. Consumers

may, for example, react with negative emotions such as anger and disappointment if they perceive

they get poor service at the hotel, from the guide(s) or in the local shops and restaurants. They may

feel sadness for people living in poverty, or when they think of a beautiful island being exploited by

tourism. They may feel afraid of being robbed or cheated, or even be afraid of terrorist attacks, or

they may feel boredom at having nothing to occupy their time with. The nature of the triggers may

affect their satisfaction and future behaviour towards the travel agent and the tourist resort. A specific

restaurant, shop or hotel can be avoided in future, and one negative experience does not have to

affect the consumer’s attitude and behaviour towards the tourist resort as a whole, but it may do so.

Another limitation of the study was that only an intensity scale was used to measure emotions. Both

intensity and frequency scales can been used but frequency scales are recommended for goods or

services with which the consumers have a long experience and for products with multiple features

(Oliver, 1997). Since the destination, hotel, guide(s) and flight all could be described as having

multiple features a frequency scale could have been used. However, it was also possible for the

consumers to have only a very brief encounter with the guide on the bus from the airport to the hotel

and back. Because of that, and because customer relationships were not in focus here, an intensity

scale was chosen for the present study. However, in our opinion future studies should include both

intensity and frequency scales to get a better understanding of both the degree and frequency of the

emotional experiences. If, for example, a negative emotion is experienced often with a service

provider, and the cause of the emotion is considered relevant to the evaluation of the total service

experience, the consumer is more likely to react with defection than if the emotion is experienced

only once and the causing factor is relatively unimportant.

26

Gardial et al. (1996, p. 39) note that “the causes of intense emotions that are relevant to post-

purchase evaluations have not been explored, nor has the notion of emotion incubation”. In order to

investigate the triggers of emotions, qualitative studies such as critical incident studies are needed. A

related research question that remains unanswered is the role of attributions both as a mediator of

triggers of emotional responses (Oliver, 1993), and as a possible mediator of emotions of

satisfaction. Dubé et al. (1996), for example, found in a study on health care that negative emotions

could be divided into situation-attributed emotions and emotions attributed the actions of other

persons (e.g. suspicion, feeling neglected). Only the latter kind had a negative effect on different

satisfaction measures.

It is in the interests of both the tour organiser and the tourist resort to know what kind of emotions

are evoked in consumers. Both positive and negative emotions should be identified so that the tour

organiser may try to strengthen the positive and abate the negative when possible. Although it is

possible for the tour organiser to influence holidaymakers’ expectations about service standards and

local conditions, many of the consumer’s experiences during his/her holiday are outside the tour

organiser’s control. The customer’s interaction with the hotel can be controlled to some degree by

the organiser by keeping a close eye on the hotel’s service standards and listening to customers’

views. It is also possible to investigate what delights customers, what makes them happy and how

the service may be improved. The choice of hotels may be changed, but local conditions such as the

presence of beggars, high criminality, polluted air and water and terrorist attacks are not under the

tour organiser’s control. However, the organiser may draw the local government’s attention to

possible problems and offer to assist in solving some of them. Thus, the most important strategy is to

manage consumer expectations. By giving a realistic picture of the resort and trying to find the

holiday package that best matches a particular consumer’s needs, unnecessary negative reactive

emotions and subsequent dissatisfaction may be avoided.

The present study did not look at consumers’ future intentions to return to the same resort and/or to

use the same tour organiser another time. However, future research should investigate how different

experienced emotions affect consumer loyalty. Although consumers may seem to be relatively

satisfied, and to feel relatively strong positive emotions and only a few negative ones, this may not be

enough to retain them as future customers. Jones and Sasser (1995) argue that only completely

satisfied consumers, i.e. those who mark the highest value on a satisfaction scale, remain loyal to the

company. It is not enough to merely satisfy consumers, because a satisfied consumer may still easily

27

switch to a competing brand. Dubé (1990), on the other hand, suggests that emotions may be more

closely related to future purchasing intentions than cognitive evaluations are. Thus, if emotions were

also taken into account when investigating consumer loyalty, it may be found that (completely)

satisfied consumers who have experienced extremely positive emotions are more loyal than those

who are (completely) satisfied but who have only neutral emotions.

One may also ask how much negative affect a consumer will tolerate without defecting. A dynamic

approach is needed to investigate both emotion incubation and the related concept of tolerance

zones of emotions. For example, the type and strength of emotions that are awakened by one or

more negative incidents in a service relationship may explain defection better than the source (type of

service quality failure) that caused the emotions. This remains to be investigated, as does the role of

service recovery in managing to change consumer emotions. Research has shown that service failure

which is solved by giving the consumer a sincere apology and fair compensation (e.g. reduced price)

can be turned into a good memory of satisfactory service and result in positive word-of-mouth

feedback. Although consumers' emotions before and after service recovery have not been

investigated, it can be assumed that negative emotions may also be turned into positive ones.

In order to understand the effect of experienced emotions on the consumer’s future interactions with

the service, there is a need to investigate to what extent emotions are remembered, retrieved and

transferred from one encounter to the next. Some may be very short-term, confirming Dabholkar’s

(1995) suggestion of the temporality of emotions, while others may be remembered for a long time

and have a profound effect, either positive or negative, on consumer loyalty.

Many different classifications of services have been put forward in service management literature,

including degree of tangibility, degree of variability, pattern of demand and extent of contact between

service provider and customer (Lovelock, 1983; Palmer, 1994; Shostack, 1977). However, little is

known about differences in emotional experiences between services. With the exception of some

illustrative examples of low/high affect services presented by Price, Arnould and Tierney (1995), no

attempts have been made to classify services according to their emotional content. It is apparent,

however, that services differ in the type and strength of emotions that they evoke in consumers. A

theatre performance is related to stronger emotions than a fast food service encounter, and some

services may be related to many negative emotions (e.g. dentists), while others may be related to

mainly positive emotions (e.g. a Mediterranean cruise). Services may also vary according to the

presence of goal-directed and reactive emotions, and according to the relative importance of these in

28

influencing satisfaction. For example, in the present study the reactive emotion ‘boredom’ loaded on

negative emotions and had a negative effect on service satisfaction. On the other hand, in a study by

Dubé et al. (1996) on health care, boredom did not load on either of the two factors with negative

emotions. It may be noted that Richins (1997) excluded boredom from her proposed Consumption

Emotions Set (CET), a general tool for studying emotions. She argued that boredom was more

suitable for studying emotions connected to advertising than consumption emotions. The present

study clearly showed that boredom is an important factor in satisfaction with holiday consumption.

Although the CET (Richins 1997) was developed from several empirical studies and is bound to be

very useful as a basis for future research, it is still partly dependent on the four consumption situations

that were used to construct it and is not all-embracing. For example, the author excludes emotions

associated with plays and movies from her study. Clearly, more empirical research is needed to

understand consumption emotions in different service settings and situations.

It may be concluded that the impact of different emotional responses on consumer satisfaction with

services has not received enough attention in conceptual discussions of service evaluation or in

empirical services research. With the exception of Bitner (1992), whose model of the effects of the

physical environment on consumer behaviour includes mood in both employee and consumer

responses, emotions have not been included as a contributing factor in service models. There is

clearly a need to amend this oversight, since the few studies that have included emotions clearly

indicate the importance of the concept in gaining a better understanding of overall service evaluations.

Notes

1 (The scale values are: Delighted, Pleased, Mostly Satisfied, Mixed, Mostly Dissatisfied, Unhappy, Terrible(Neutral, Never Thought About It).)

2 (The data were collected by students Mikael Berndtson, Ann-Lis Henriksson-Santaharju, Peter Strömberg andJan Virtavuori for a course on service management.)

3 (Note that it is not possible to separate mood and emotions in this survey.)

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APPENDIX

Table I. Dispersion of answers on emotions and satisfaction measures

Percent of marks for each scale valueVariable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean Std.dev.

Emotions connected

with destination

Happiness 1.2 0.4 2.8 12.6 22.8 34.6 25.6 5.6 1.2

Excitement 2.0 0.8 10.0 20.1 29.3 24.5 13.3 5.0 1.3

Calmness 4.9 4.1 4.5 15.0 24.0 34.6 13.0 5.0 1.5

Surprise 20.6 13.4 14.2 19.4 17.4 10.5 4.5 3.5 1.8

Sadness 52.0 27.2 9.3 4.5 4.1 2.4 0.4 1.9 1.3

Fear 61.7 25.8 5.2 3.6 2.4 1.2 0 1.6 1.0

Boredom 44.1 23.1 17.0 9.3 3.6 2.4 0.4 2.1 1.3

Idleness 36.0 18.0 20.4 11.2 6.0 6.8 1.6 2.6 1.6

Satisfaction withdestination

Satisfaction overall 0 0.4 2.7 7.4 18.6 41.1 29.8 5.9 1.0

Satisf. with recreations 1.2 0.8 5.5 17.3 23.9 32.5 18.8 5.3 1.3

Disconfirmation 1.2 3.6 8.5 25.0 26.2 25.4 10.1 4.9 1.3

Emotions connected

with hotel

Happiness 2.5 0.4 5.7 16.4 25.4 29.1 20.5 5.3 1.4

Excitement 5.9 5.0 12.6 26.5 23.1 20.6 6.3 4.2 1.5

Calmness 8.4 5.0 5.9 14.2 28.0 26.8 11.7 4.8 1.7

Surprise 33.5 17.6 16.3 15.1 10.5 5.4 1.7 2.7 1.7

Sadness 60.9 20.6 8.0 5.5 2.9 1.7 0.4 1.8 1.2

Fear 70.6 18.5 4.6 3.4 2.1 0.4 0.4 1.5 1.0

Boredom 48.3 21.8 13.9 9.7 3.8 2.1 0.4 2.1 1.3

Idleness 40.2 19.7 14.2 12.6 9.2 3.3 0.8 2.4 1.6

Satisfaction with hotel

Overall satisfaction 0.8 2.4 7.1 13.1 25.4 29.4 21.8 5.3 1.3

Satisf. with personnel 1.2 2.8 6.8 15.5 25.1 29.9 18.7 5.2 1.4

Satisf. with location 0 1.2 7.5 9.5 17.5 32.1 32.1 5.7 1.3

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continued 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean Std.dev.

Emotions connected

with guide

Happiness 10.0 3.5 10.9 21.4 21.4 21.4 11.4 4.5 1.7

Excitement 13.7 4.0 13.3 23.0 24.3 15.0 6.6 4.1 1.7

Calmness 16.4 4.1 6.4 25.1 20.5 17.8 9.6 4.2 1.9

Surprise 45.2 13.6 12.7 15.4 8.1 4.1 0.9 2.4 1.6

Sadness 79.0 8.5 7.6 4.0 0.9 0 0 1.4 0.9

Fear 81.2 8.1 4.0 4.0 0.9 0.9 0 1.4 0.9

Boredom 63.8 17.2 5.4 10.0 3.6 0 0 1.7 1.2

Idleness 60.8 11.5 12.4 11.5 3.2 0.5 0 1.9 1.2

Satisfaction with guide

Overall satisfaction 0.4 0.4 4.1 16.0 22.6 32.1 24.3 5.5 1.2

Disconfirmation 0.9 1.7 6.5 32.0 26.8 22.5 9.5 4.9 1.2

Emotions connected

with flight home

Happiness 5.7 3.3 9.0 24.1 26.1 20.8 11.0 4.7 1.5

Excitement 12.8 11.9 15.2 26.3 17.3 11.1 5.3 3.8 1.7

Calmness 9.0 4.1 7.8 19.2 23.7 28.2 8.2 4.6 1.7

Surprise 46.3 15.6 9.8 14.8 7.0 3.3 3.3 2.4 1.7

Sadness 63.0 19.3 6.6 6.6 2.9 1.2 0.4 1.7 1.2

Fear 59.5 23.9 6.5 4.5 2.0 1.6 2.0 1.8 1.3

Boredom 30.5 17.3 14.8 16.9 10.7 6.6 3.3 2.9 1.8

Idleness 21.7 13.7 15.3 19.3 14.1 12.0 4.0 3.4 1.8

Satisfaction with flight

Satisfaction overall 0 1.2 2.7 6.6 21.7 40.7 27.1 5.8 1.1

Satisf. with personnel 0 1.2 1.9 5.8 16.3 42.8 31.9 5.9 1.0

Disconfirmation 0.4 2.4 3.7 33.7 24.0 22.4 13.4 5.0 1.2

Satisf. with whole trip 0.4 0.8 5.7 16.4 25.4 29.1 20.5 5.3 1.4