1

The effect of provider's hospitality and customers’ characteristic on their

satisfaction and intention to become repeated customer: Implications for
tourism development plans in Pringsewu Regency-Sumatra

Samsul Bakri*1,2, Abdul Firman Ashaf2,3, Dikpride Despa2,4, Siti Herawati Sitorus2, Adella Putri
Aprilliani2, Mia Putri Utami2, Nurhasanah Nurhasanah5, Hartudi Purnaweni6 and Cicih Danisari7

1
Department of Forestry, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Lampung
2
Master of Environmental Science Study Program, The Graduate School, The University of Lampung
3
Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Science, The University of Lampung
4
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Lampung
5
Master of Environmental Science Study Program, Faculty of Science and Technology, Indonesian Open
University (UT).
6
Doctor of Environmental Study Program, The Graduate School, Diponegoro University
7
Board of Regional Development Planning of Pringsewu Regency
*Corresponding author, Jl. S. Brojonegoro #1, Bandar Lampung 35415; Email: samsul.bakri@fp.unila.ac.id

Abstract
There is no research data that can justify the urgency of empowering tourism service providers through the development of
hospitality attitudes in order to increase customer satisfaction which is a prerequisite for increasing the intention to visit and
shop again in this district. This data is absolutely necessary to design a tourism development strategy through the use of
positive externalities from the rise of ecotourism in the regencies surrounding Pringsewu. Structural Equation Modeling
(SEM) was applied to test the hypothesis: H1 customer satisfaction is significantly influenced by its own characteristics, H2
customer satisfaction is significantly influenced by the performance of providers’ hospitality of goods and services, H3
Repeat customers are significantly influenced by customer characteristics, H4 Repeat customers are significantly influenced
by the hospitality's providers, H5 Repeat customers are significantly influenced by customer satisfaction, and H6 the overall
model can be good and fit in explaining both the direct and indirect effects of characteristic variables customers and the
performance of hospitality providers to repeat customers enhancement. This research was conducted from July to August
2022. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to test those 6 hypotheses by employing the Smart PLS 4. The latent
variables of respondents' characteristics were proxied using 4 manifest variables, namely age, number of dependents,
monthly income, and occupation. Meanwhile, the latent variables of providers’ hospitality, customer satisfaction, and
intention to become regular customers were measured using 5, 3, and 4 questions, each using 5 rating options. The results
suggest to: [1] reject any relation of customer characteristics customer satisfaction (Pvalue=0.593); and proves the
significant relations for: [2] provider’s hospitality  customer satisfaction (Pvalue=0.000); [3] customer characteristics 
repeated customer (Pvalue=0.00); [4] provider hospitality  repeated customer (Pvalue=0.000); [5] customer satisfaction 
repeated customer enhancement (Pvalue=0.007) and [6] the overall model is satisfied the goodness of fit. It suggests that
policymakers to educate local providers of products and services to improve their hospitality in order to increase
customer satisfaction which indirectly leads to customer retention.

Key words: Post Covid 19 pandemic, highest economic growth, middle town, PLS SEM, the heart of provincial
area

Introduction
Pringsewu is a district located in the heart of Lampung Province in a regional context to access the
main tourist destinations in the province. Although this district is poor in tourism natural resources
compared to surrounding districts, the economic growth of the Pringsewu tourism service sector is the
highest even during the Covid 19 pandemic for the last 2 years. According to data recorded of BPS,
the Local Statistical Bureau, (BPS, 2022), this small town of Pringsewu Regency has a population of
approximately 410.864 people with the contribution of the tourism sector around 12.7 % of the total
RGBP. The economic performance of the tourism sector in Pringsewu Regency in the last 5 years has
continued to increase by 6.7 %. This increase is the largest compared to regencies that have quite a
number of tourist objects, include the cipital city of Bandar Lampung, Tanggmus, Sentral Lampung,
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and Pesawaran. Therefore, further as suggested by Jariyachamsit and Techarattanased, (2022) the
development is very important to be directed to attract visitors. According to Almohaimmeed (2022)
recruiting new customers or visitors is very important, but customer retention is much more
important. The essence of customer retention is every effort to attract interest in order to become
repeated visitor to tourist objects (Ghani et al, 2022). As proved by Gonda et al (2021) the number of
tourist visit in turn will also open up opportunities to become repeated buyers of good and service
products provided in the down town area including culinary, restaurants, souvenirs, as well as using
various service products such as hotels, lodging, transportation etc. In line with Sunaryo et al (2019)
furthermore, all forms of these transactions will increase the income of the local community as well as
the income of the local authority, especially from local taxes collecting (Zabihi and Rezazadeh, 2021).
Interest in revisiting a tourist attraction is strongly influenced by tourist satisfaction with the service
performance experienced, in addition to the individual character of the tourists themselves (Jebbouri
et al, 2022). According to (Shahrivar, 2012) characteristics that can greatly affect satisfaction include
age, gender, type of profession, total income, number of dependents and several other demographic
factors. In addition to internal factors from tourists, according to Herman (2022) the external factors
also greatly affect visitor and customer satisfaction. External determinants of repurchase in each
transaction process can be ascertained from suppliers or providers of goods and services (Lin et al,
2022). The tangible quality of the product can certainly determine the satisfaction of visitors or
customers (Amrullah et al, 2022). If tangible goods defects, it will disappoint customers even though
the disappointment that comes from these tangible goods is relatively easy to respond to through a
compensation process, or directly replace with the good ones (Rajput et al, 2020).
But it seems relatively more difficult to detect if the source of satisfaction is derived from the way or
method of service provided by the providers (Sukri et al, 2022). In this context, hospitality attitudes
can play an important role in service sectors in order to visitors or customers to feel very comfortable
(Arifin et al, 2018). The attitude of hospitality is also the main source to create a sense of comfort
(Marine-Roig, 2022) for visitors to tourist attractions and for customers who buy goods in or around
them. This level of hospitality is at its peak which can increase interest in visiting a tourist attraction
as well as repurchasing various products in the vicinity of tourist objects and in downtown.
Considering those customer characteristics are exogenous variables, while hospitality variables are
endogenous providers, so then the development of this behavior is relatively easy to plan by public
authorities through various guidance and empowering, particularly for small and medium product
providers such as the food street vendors. Based on the series of arguments expressed, we are
proposing a hypothesis in nature affects the intention of visits and repurchases, the behavior of
hospitality service or product providers can work directly or indirectly through visitor or customer
satisfaction.
The purpose of this study is to build a model: (1) the direct effect of customer characteristics and
providers’ hospitality on the intension to become repeated visitor and buyers, (2) the indirect effect of
customer characteristics and hospitality providers through customer satisfaction performance. This
model is very useful for planning the development of tourism sector performance in small cities such
as Pringsewu Regency through fostering the hospitality attitude of product or service providers in
Pringsewu tourism objects and the downtown areas.

Research Method
This research was conducted from July to August 2022 in Pringsewu downtown. The research
location is displayed in Figure 1. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to test the
hypothesis: H1 customer satisfaction is significantly influenced by its own characteristics, H2 customer
satisfaction is significantly influenced by the performance of hospitality providers of goods and
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services, H3 Repeat customers are significantly influenced by customer characteristics, H4 Repeat

customers are significantly influenced by the hospitality's product providers, H5 Repeat customers are
significantly influenced by customer satisfaction, and H6 the overall model can be good and fit in
explaining both the direct and indirect effects of characteristic variables customers and the
performance of hospitality providers to become as repeat customers enhancement. The structural and
measurement models (algorithm model) proposed is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 1. Research location Figure 2. Model algorithm applied

In connection with the interest of the local public authorities of Pringsewu Regency, in order to
increase interest in tourist visits, development planning is not limited to specific tourist objects only,
but also very important for the development of shopping and entertaining services in the downtown
area. Therefore, consumer data collection is carried out at 3 tourist detinations namely Princhesto
Family Tour, Ecotourism Talang Indah, and The Café Maria Catholic Church), restaurants, hotel
shopping center malls, food streets, and fruit kiosks at tourist locations and at surround downtown.
Data collection is done through interviews the visitors whose come accindentally to the places to
record their characteristics including age, number of dependents, monthly income, and type of work
and then grouped as presented in Table 1. Furthermore, responses to the level of service satisfaction
(CS), service provider friendliness, and intention to become repeat customers were recorded using the
instruments presented in Table 2, Table 3, and Table 4 respectively. We collected 134 respondents
with the distribution of interview sites in tourist sites, hotels, restaurants, and food street as many as
26, 20, 26, 62 respondents, respectively.
There are 4 latent variables used which are all expressed on an ordinal scale in 5 ranks, namely: (i)
customer characteristics, (ii) provider's hospitality, (iii) customer satisfaction, and (iv) repeated
customers. The measurement model for the latent variable of characteristics includes age, number of
dependents, monthly income, and occupancy expressed on an ordinal scale.

Table 1. The characteristic of customers and their classification ranks

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Ranks Age (year) Total Dependence Monthly Income Occupation Type

=CC1 (Child)= CC2 (1000 IDR) = CC3 =CC4

1 15-25 0 500-1.000 House Wife or Student

2 26-35 1 1.100-2.000 Labor/Peasant

3 36-45 2 2.100-3.000 Civil Servant

4 46-55 3 3.100-4.000 Professional Worker

5 > 55 4 or more >4.000 Entrepreneur

In order to develop a measurement model for the latent variable customer satisfaction (customer satisfaction)
using 3 sentence syntax (CS1, CS2, and CS3) with 5 ordinal levels of answer choices. The details are presented in
Table 2.

Table 2. Customer Satisfaction Level Measurement Instrument (CS)

Symbol The syntax for Customer Satisfaction Measurement Choices

CS1 I am happy with the experience of visiting (shopping) here 1 2 3 4 5

CS2 Overall I am satisfied visiting (shopping) here. 1 2 3 4 5

CS3 The service is satisfactory here. 1 2 3 4 5

By using an argument analogous to measuring customer satisfaction, the development of a measurement model
for the latent variable at the hospitality provider level (PH1 to PH5) is presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Hospitality Provider Level Measurement Instruments

Symbol Syntax for Provider Hospitality Measurement Choices

PH1 I feel good with the service here 1 2 3 4 5

PH2 I feel honored with the service here 1 2 3 4 5

PH3 I feel comfortable with the service here 1 2 3 4 5

PH4 I feel given the friendliness of the service here. 1 2 3 4 5

PH5 I feel pampered visiting (shopping) here. 1 2 3 4 5

Likewise, for the development of measurement models for the latent variable of intention to become repeat
customers, 4 measurement syntaxes are needed as presented in Table 4.

Table 4. Measurement instruments for the Variable Intention to become Repeated Customer

Symbol The syntax for Repeated Customer Choices

RC1 I will come back to visit (shop) here 1 2 3 4 5

RC2 I will definitely visit (shop) here again 1 2 3 4 5

RC3 Most likely I will visit (shop) here again 1 2 3 4 5

RC4 I plan to visit (shop) here again 1 2 3 4 5

Results and Discussion

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Firstly we have to evaluate the goodness fits of the model. It is included 3 criteria: (i) Overall model
fit, (ii) Measurement model fit, and (iii) structural model fit. The results of the overall model fit
analysis are presented in Table 5.
Table 5. The overall model fit

No. The goodness of Fit Parameters Estimated Parameters Testing Conclusion

1. Chi-Square /Degree of Freedom 309.023/309.023= 00 Good Fit

2. Standardized Root Mean Square Residue (SRMR) 0.081 Acceptable Fit

3. Normated Fit Index (NFI) 0.721 Marginal Fit

4. Root Mean Square Theta (RMS_Theta) 0.209 Poor Fit

As can be observed in Table 5 that by using the ChiSquare criteria, it has fulfilled the Good fit. The
SRMR value is 0.088 < 0.10 referring to Karin Schermeleh et al (2003) if the SRMR value < 0.10
then the result is still an acceptable fit. The NFI value is 0.714 < 0.95 then the result is still marginal
fit. RMS_theta is 0.209>0.10 then based on the assessment RMS_theta does not meet the criteria for
model fit. Thus, the overall conclusions are: 1 Good Fit match, 1 Marginal Fit match, 1 acceptable fit,
and 1 Poor Fit match, it can be concluded that if there is at least one criterion that meets the criteria
for goodness of fit, then the match between the data and the current model is already well.
Measurement Model Fit

Considering that latent variables cannot be measured directly, but must use one or several
indicators, the measurement of each indicator must be tested for validity and reliability. Table
6 presents the results of testing the validity and reliability parameters of the 4 latent variable
measurement instruments used to develop the SEM model in this study. The construct and
reliability of the measurement model fit are depicted in Table 6.
Table 6. The results of testing the validity and reliability of indicator measurements for the 4 latent variables

No. Latent Variables Cronbach’s rho_A Composite Average

Alpha Reliability (CR) Variance Extracted
[Critical=0.7] (AVE) [Critical=0.5]
1. Customer Characteristics (CC) 0.789 0.820 0.863 0.612
2. Provider Hospitality (PH) 0.756 0.757 0.860 0.673
3. Customer Satisfaction (CS) 0.830 0.830 0.881 0.596
4. Repeated Customer (RS) 0.874 0.876 0.914 0.726

The customer characteristics variable (CC) has a composite reliability (CR) value of 0.863 > 0.70
indicating that each question item used to measure Consumer Characteristics (CC) provides reliable
results in the measurement. Likewise, the value of Provider's Hospitality, the value of Consumer
Satisfaction (CS), as well as the value of Intention to visit or become a repeat customer (RC) have
values above > 0.70 (Reliable). The CR value 0.70 means that it shows good reliability on latent
variables/constructs (Hair et al., 2019; Ghozali, 2011).
The AVE value on the Customer Characteristics (CC) variable is 0.612 > 0.50, which indicates a valid
convergence has occurred. Likewise, the value of product provider friendliness (PH), and Consumer
Satisfaction (CS , as well as the Intention to become a customer or repeat visitor (RC) all,l have
values > 0.50. The AVE value of 0.50 means that it shows good convergence on latent
variables/constructs (Ghozali, 2011). From the results of this test, it can be seen that the instrument
and measurement model are reliable and valid for the four latent variables used to build this SEM.
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Furthermore, the ultimate goal of this research is to test the suitability of the SEM model that is being
designed.

Structural Model Fit

The algorithm model PLS SEM is presented in Figure 3. Whereas model bootstrapping with 500
replications of resampling is presented in Figure 4.

Model Algorithm the Effect of Customer Characteristics and

Provider’s Hospitality on Customer Satisfaction on their loyalty

Figure 3. Model Algorithm the Effect of Customer Characteristics and Provider’s Hospitality on Customer Satisfaction and
their intention to become repeated customer

Model after Bootstrapping

Figure 4. Bootstrapping on the model of measurement and structural model of exogenous latent variables of customer
characteristics and provider's hospitality on the direct and indirect influence of customer's desire to visit/buy
repeatedly and the indirect effect of customer satisfaction.
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In Figure 3 it can be shown that all loading factors are valid as instruments that reflect each of the 4
latent variables that are proxied The smallest loading factor is 0.709 while the largest is 0.875
respectively as proxies reflecting CC and RC by CC 1 and RC2 respectively as well. After
bootstrapping, Figure 4, all loadings for all indicators increase well above the critical value (0.70) in
evaluating the instrument for measuring each latent variable. The lowest loading factor value is on
CC1 which is 5.522 and the largest is 4.556, namely on RC2 as well.
Hypothesis Testing Result

The results of hypothesis testing are presented briefly in Table 7. As can be checked in this table, that
all paths have a significant role which is indicated by the resulting P-value, which is <1%, except for
the respondent's characteristics on consumer satisfaction (CCCS). ) which gives P-value = 0.590
(=59%) which means it exceeds the critical value of 5%.
Table 7. The Structural Model Fit or Hypothesis Testing Result

Original Sample Standard T Statistics

The Structural Equation Model P-Values
Sample Mean Deviation (O/STDEV|)
H1: Customer Characteristics  Customer Satisfaction -0.042 -0.040 0.078 0.539 0.590
H2: Provider’s Hospitality  Customer Satisfaction 0.230 0.240 0.058 3.967 0.000
H3: Customer Characteristics  Repeated Customer 0.252 0.246 0.089 2.830 0.005
H4: Provider Hospitality  Repeated Customer 0.603 0.604 0.068 8.838 0.000
H5: Customer Satisfaction  Repeated Customer 0.406 0.408 0.091 4.438 0.000

The critical decision in the Structural Model Fit or Hypothesis Testing is to check the P-value at
significant level (alpha) of 0.05 or compare the CR (Critical Ratio) score with the t-table (1.96). If in
this test obtained p-value <0.05 (alpha 5%) or t-count > t-table, it means that the test is significant,
and vice versa if p-value > 0.05 (α=5%) the meaning is not significant.
The relationship between consumer characteristics (CC) and customer satisfaction (CS) has a negative
value with insignificant status. The relationship between consumer characteristics (CC) and intention
to become visitors or repeat customers (RC) has a positive value with significant status. The
relationship between the characteristics of product provider friendliness (PH) and consumer
satisfaction (CS) has a positive value with significant status. The relationship between the
characteristics of service provider friendliness (PH) and intention to revisit (RC) has a positive value
with significant status. And the relationship between customer satisfaction (CC) and intention to
revisit (RC) has a positive value with significant status. Thus H1 is rejected, which means that
customer satisfaction is not significantly not influenced by his or her characteristics.
Unlike the case with H2, it is proven that there is a significant effect that Provider Hospitality (PH) has
a significant effect on customer satisfaction (CS). In this case, every time there is an increase in PH by
1 level, then the CS will increase by 0.230. This increase is very significant as indicated by the value
of P-vulue = 0.000 (<1%) which means that H2 is accepted. The implication is that local public
authorities need to establish policies for empowerment programs so that providers of goods and
services can increase PH. This policy is important considering that an increase in CS can also increase
Repeated Consumers (RC) significantly where for every 1 level increase in CS, the RC will increase
by 0.46 levels, which is significant as indicated by P-value = 0.000 (<5%). With this finding, H5 is
accepted.

Original Sample Standard T Statistics P-Values

The Structural Equation Model Sample Mean Deviation (O/STDEV|)
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H1: Customer Characteristics  Customer Satisfaction -0.042 -0.040 0.078 0.539 0.590
H2: Provider’s Hospitality  Customer Satisfaction 0.230 0.240 0.058 3.967 0.000
H3: Customer Characteristics  Repeated Customer 0.252 0.246 0.089 2.830 0.005
H4: Provider Hospitality  Repeated Customer 0.603 0.604 0.068 8.838 0.000
H5: Customer Satisfaction  Repeated Customer 0.406 0.408 0.091 4.438 0.000

Concluding Remark
The results suggest to: [1] reject any relation of customer characteristics customer satisfaction
(Pvalue=0.593); and proves the significant relations for: [2] provider’s hospitality  customer
satisfaction (Pvalue=0.000); [3] customer characteristics  repeated customer (Pvalue=0.00); [4]
provider hospitality  repeated customer (Pvalue=0.000); [5] customer satisfaction  repeated
customer enhancemnet (Pvalue=0.007) and [6] the overall model is satisfied the goodness of fit.

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