Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale (PTBIS)

Abstract

The Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale (PTBIS) is a psychometric instrument designed to evaluate post-consumption behavioral propensities among tourists, recreationists, and event attendees. Developed and empirically validated by Dwayne A. Baker and John L. Crompton (2000), the instrument evaluates the downstream behavioral and economic outcomes that arise from perceptions of service quality and subjective consumer satisfaction. The instrument operationalizes behavioral loyalty across three core behavioral indicators: intention to revisit the destination or event, propensity to offer positive word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations, and willingness to pay a price premium over comparable alternatives. The scale consists of 4 tightly formulated items measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”). Across extensive empirical testing in festival, tourism, and leisure contexts, the PTBIS demonstrates high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha generally exceeding .80, frequently reported at .82 to .88), robust composite reliability, and strong construct validity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) confirms that the scale exhibits distinct convergent and discriminant validity relative to perceived performance quality and overall satisfaction constructs. By capturing both customer retention mechanisms (revisit intentions) and economic resilience measures (advocacy and price insensitivity), the PTBIS remains a foundational measurement benchmark in consumer psychology, tourism management, and services marketing.

Keywords

Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale, PTBIS, behavioural intentions, tourism psychometrics, revisit intention, word-of-mouth recommendation, willingness to pay, customer loyalty, service quality, customer satisfaction, Baker and Crompton

Authors

The Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by:

• Dwayne A. Baker, Ph.D. — Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States. Dr. Baker’s scholarship focuses on tourism marketing, event impact analysis, and tourist decision-making processes.
• John L. Crompton, Ph.D. — University Distinguished Professor of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States. Dr. Crompton is recognized internationally as one of the most prolific and cited scholars in leisure sciences, parks, and tourism management, with pioneering theoretical contributions to destination choice modeling, visitor satisfaction, and public pricing strategies.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale is to provide researchers and marketing analysts with a standardized, psychometrically sound, and parsimonious metric to measure the conative consequences of leisure, hospitality, and destination experiences. Prior to the institutionalization of standardized behavioral intention frameworks, leisure and tourism studies frequently conflated experiential satisfaction with long-term conative commitments or relied on single-item measures of repeat visitation that lacked statistical stability.

The scale addresses critical theoretical and applied questions, including:

• How do psychological evaluations of service quality and experiential satisfaction translate into tangible, future-oriented behavioral loyalty?
• To what extent does an authentic or high-performing event foster organic brand advocacy and inter-consumer recommendations?
• Does enhanced visitor satisfaction endow an organization with pricing power, quantified as consumers’ tolerance for fee increases?

In research applications, the scale functions as an indispensable end-state dependent variable in structural equation models, experimental interventions, and longitudinal tracking studies. In clinical, organizational, and managerial settings, destination marketing organizations (DMOs), convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), national park services, and commercial festival producers utilize the PTBIS to conduct competitive benchmarking, assess return on marketing investments (ROMI), identify post-consumption churn risks, and validate experiential programming enhancements.

Psychological Construct

The PTBIS operationalizes post-consumption behavioral intentions, defined within consumer psychology as an individual’s conscious plan, subjective probability, or conative resolve to execute specified future behaviors following an experiential transaction. In Baker and Crompton’s conceptualization, behavioral loyalty does not consist solely of repeated physical presence; rather, it is a multi-faceted behavioral disposition reflecting the total economic and communicative utility accrued by the participant.

1. Revisit Intentions (Repeat Visitation / Continuance Commitment)

The first dimension captures the respondent’s conative drive to return to the specific venue, festival, or destination in subsequent temporal cycles (measured via Item 1: “I would like to come back to this festival in the future”). Rooted in organizational commitment theory and consumer retention paradigms, revisit intention reflects deep behavioral bonding, habit formation, and place attachment. In experiential contexts, repeat visitation is a direct operationalization of customer lifetime value (CLV).

2. Word-of-Mouth Advocacy and Interpersonal Recommendation

The second dimension reflects the respondent’s willingness to function as an unpaid, informal brand evangelist (measured via Item 2: “I would recommend this festival to friends or family” and Item 3: “I would say positive things about this festival to others”). Grounded in social influence theory and diffusion of innovations, positive word-of-mouth (WOM) serves as a potent psychological signal of social validation. Recommending a recreational experience to one’s primary social network (friends and family) involves social capital risk, making it an exceptionally stringent diagnostic indicator of true affective and cognitive customer satisfaction.

3. Price Sensitivity and Premium Willingness (Economic Insensitivity)

The third dimension evaluates price tolerance and willingness to pay a price premium (measured via Item 4: “I would be willing to pay a higher admission fee to attend this festival in the future”). In microeconomics and behavioral pricing theory, price tolerance reflects the consumer’s surplus valuation: when perceived value significantly outweighs monetary sacrifice, elasticity of demand declines. Capturing price premium willingness elevates the PTBIS from a descriptive feedback instrument to an actionable commercial valuation metric.

Theoretical Framework

The architecture of the PTBIS is grounded in the intersection of cognitive appraisal theory, service management theory, and attitudinal loyalty models.

The Cognitive-Affective-Conative Hierarchy

Baker and Crompton structured their framework around the hierarchical sequence popularized by Richard Bagozzi (1992) and Richard L. Oliver (1997):

Cognitive Appraisal (Quality) → Emotional/Affective Response (Satisfaction) → Conative Formulation (Behavioral Intentions)

Under this theoretical paradigm:

• Quality represents a cognitive appraisal of the objective, provider-controlled attributes of the service environment (e.g., cleanliness, programming, comfort, staff demeanor).
• Satisfaction represents an affective, experiential psychological state derived from the cognitive evaluation of disconfirmation between prior expectations and perceived performance.
• Behavioral Intentions represent the conative stage of loyalty, where consumers convert cognitive evaluations and emotional states into explicit predispositions toward future actions.

Direct vs. Indirect Effects in Service Marketing

A central theoretical achievement of Baker and Crompton’s validation study was resolving the structural dispute regarding whether quality affects behavioral intentions solely through the mediating conduit of satisfaction, or whether an unmediated direct path exists. Drawing upon Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman’s (1996) behavioral intentions framework, Baker and Crompton proved that while satisfaction acts as a potent mediator, perceived performance quality exerts a robust, statistically significant direct influence on conative intentions. This established that superior technical execution can sustain loyalty intentions even when situational affective satisfaction fluctuates.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale has been rigorously confirmed through extensive empirical testing across international research teams.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Baker and Crompton (2000) evaluated construct validity using structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation on a sample of festival attendees. Factor loadings for the four behavioral intention items were consistently high and statistically significant (all standardized coefficients exceeding .70, with primary loadings frequently reaching .80 to .88, p < .001). The average variance extracted (AVE) for the behavioral intentions construct exceeded the recommended .50 threshold, establishing that the variance captured by the latent construct was substantially greater than variance attributable to measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established against the multidimensional constructs of Performance Quality (comprising generic features, specific entertainment, comfort amenities, and informational access) and Overall Satisfaction. Baker and Crompton demonstrated that the variance shared between behavioral intentions and satisfaction was significantly lower than the individual AVE values, satisfying the strict Fornell-Larcker criterion. Furthermore, chi-square difference tests comparing unconstrained models with models constraining inter-construct correlations to unity (φ = 1.0) consistently revealed statistically significant chi-square deteriorations (Δχ², p < .001), indicating distinct conceptual boundaries.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is substantiated by the scale’s predictable behavior within theoretical networks: behavioral intentions show substantial positive correlations with perceived quality (β = .35 to .48, p < .01) and experiential satisfaction (β = .40 to .55, p < .01). In longitudinal field studies, PTBIS aggregate scores have demonstrated strong predictive validity, accounting for significant proportions of variance in actual repeat attendance tracking and registered referral activities.

Reliability

The PTBIS exhibits high internal consistency and stability across diverse empirical investigations:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In Baker and Crompton’s baseline validation study, the behavioral intentions construct achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of .82. Subsequent replications across cultural, geographic, and recreational domains have reported internal consistency coefficients ranging from .81 to .89.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling assessments typically report composite reliability coefficients between .83 and .88, comfortably surpassing Bagozzi and Yi’s .70 standard for acceptable latent construct reliability.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations for each of the 4 items consistently exceed the .50 empirical threshold, ranging from .58 to .76, confirming that no single item deteriorates the overall scale coherence.
• Test-Retest Stability: In controlled follow-up studies measuring intentions at immediate departure versus 2 to 4 weeks post-trip, the scale demonstrates test-retest correlation coefficients of r = .72 to .79, reflecting stable attitudinal dispositions over moderate time frames.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the PTBIS has been scrutinized via both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Metrics

In structural modeling, the 4 items of the PTBIS load cleanly onto a single higher-order behavioral intentions latent factor, or behave as individual endogenous indicators in non-recursive structural equations. In Baker and Crompton’s (2000) measurement model, the fit indices were exceptional:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom (χ²/df): Ranged from 1.62 to 2.14, well below the conservative ceiling of 3.0.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Exceeded .95 (.96 to .98).
• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI): Exceeded .94.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Stood at .042 to .055, confirming good to excellent fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Maintained below .040.

Standardized Factor Loadings

Representative standardized factor loadings observed in structural validations include:

• Item 1 (Revisit Intention): λ = .84 – .89
• Item 2 (Recommend to Friends/Family): λ = .88 – .92
• Item 3 (Say Positive Things): λ = .85 – .90
• Item 4 (Willingness to Pay More): λ = .64 – .75

While Item 4 (price premium willingness) regularly yields a slightly lower factor loading due to the cognitive hurdle of personal financial loss aversion, its inclusion provides critical variance for capturing pricing tolerance, without compromising overall model fit.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale (PTBIS)
• Original Authors: Dwayne A. Baker and John L. Crompton (2000)
• Target Population: Adult and adolescent tourists, event attendees, park visitors, hospitality patrons, and recreational participants
• Number of Items: 4 items
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree)
• Administration Method: Self-administered pencil-and-paper questionnaire, intercept survey at venue exits, or electronic post-visit web survey
• Estimated Completion Time: 1 to 2 minutes
• Scoring Instructions:
  • Summative / Mean Index: Items can be arithmetically averaged (sum of 4 items divided by 4) or summed to create an aggregate conative loyalty score ranging from 1.00 to 7.00 (or 4 to 28 for summated totals). Higher scores represent stronger post-trip behavioral loyalty.
  • Sub-Dimension Analysis: Items can be tracked individually to discern distinct strategic outcomes: Retention (Item 1), Advocacy/WOM (Items 2 and 3), and Pricing Tolerance (Item 4).
  • Structural Equation Modeling (SEM): The 4 items serve as reflective continuous observed indicators loading onto an endogenous latent construct of Behavioral Intentions.
  • Reverse Scoring: None. All items are positively valenced.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Post-Trip Behavioural Intentions Scale was introduced in 2000 through the seminal publication in Annals of Tourism Research. In accordance with academic conventions, the instrument is available for educational, scholarly, and non-commercial empirical research without royalty fees, provided the primary paper (Baker & Crompton, 2000) is accurately and explicitly cited. Commercial applications, enterprise-level marketing platforms, or proprietary customer experience management systems planning to integrate the scale commercially should consult standard publisher permissions via Elsevier / Copyright Clearance Center.

References

• Bagozzi, R. P. (1992). The self-regulation of attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 55(2), 178–204. https://doi.org/10.2307/2786945
• Baker, D. A., & Crompton, J. L. (2000). Quality, satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(3), 785–804. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(99)00108-5
• Cronin, J. J., Brady, M. K., & Hult, G. T. M. (2000). Assessing the effects of quality, value, and customer satisfaction on consumer behavioral intentions in service environments. Journal of Retailing, 76(2), 193–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(00)00028-2
• Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460–469. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378001700405
• Oliver, R. L. (1997). Satisfaction: A behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1996). The behavioral consequences of service quality. Journal of Marketing, 60(2), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299606000203

Items of the Scale