Determinants of customer loyalty in Malaysian rural tourism

The main purpose of this study is to develop a direct and indirect effect understanding of service quality, customer satisfaction and trust on customer loyalty in Malaysia rural tourism. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) used to analyze the casual relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. The model was developed and later tested by adopting the Partial Least Square (PLS) procedure on data collected from a survey that yielded 295 usable questionnaires. The findings showed that service quality, customer satisfaction and trust have significant and positive influence on customer loyalty in Malaysia rural tourism. The result has also shown that satisfaction and trust play mediating role in the indirect relationship. The findings imply that the relationship of service quality, satisfaction and trust on customer loyalty will lead to rural tourism operators’ profitability.