Effects of marketing ethics on customer satisfaction in tourism industry

Reputation is key in the management in tourism industry. In other words, a company should present favorable corporate image to enhance the trust of the customers and further induce the purchase intention and behaviors so as to enhance the sustainable management of tourism businesses. Customers’ Trust is the support of tourism industry, as it satisfies the basic demands for travel guarantee and safety. Following the promotion of consumer awareness, consumers tend to purchase products or accept services from trusted tourism businesses, which therefore have to present excellent corporate image. Nevertheless, some tourism businesses have neglected Marketing Ethics in the development of market economy because of over-pursuing economic interests. When consumer sovereignty is infringed, consumer satisfaction would be reduced, resulting in declining customer loyalty. By distributing and collecting questionnaires on-site, adult tourists of Lion Travel are sampled as the research subjects. A total of 400 copies of questionnaires were distributed, in which 276 copies were valid, with the retrieval rate of 69%. SPSS is utilized for the data analyses, and Factor Analysis, Reliability Analysis, Regression Analysis, and Analysis of Variance are applied to testing various hypotheses. The research results are concluded as following. 1. Marketing Ethics presents partially positive effects on Service Process in Customer Satisfaction. 2. Marketing Ethics reveals partially positive effects on Service Structure in Customer Satisfaction. 3. Marketing Ethics shows significantly positive effects on Service Outcome in Customer Satisfaction. 4. Individual Attributes appear to have remarkable effects on the correlations between Marketing Ethics and Customer Satisfaction.