Exploratory study of experience factors influencing attraction, satisfaction, and loyalty of escape room customers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23882/emss26273Keywords:
experiential leisure, customer experience, escape room, attraction, satisfaction, loyaltyAbstract
Experiential leisure represents a particularly immersive and unique field of consumption (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). Consumers of such leisure activities are engaged in a complex quest for sensory stimulation, intense moments, thrills, emotionally charged memories, and more (Morgan, Lugosi & Ritchie, 2010). The escape room/game is a playful form of entertainment that adopts an original approach by immersing customers in an intriguing atmosphere (Ford & Millward, 2019). Despite the uniqueness and rapid growth of this form of leisure, very few academic studies have addressed it.
This article explores, through a purely experiential lens, the explanatory variables behind attraction, satisfaction, and loyalty in the context of escape games. It does so by developing a conceptual model based on a narrative literature review, and then validating it within an interpretivist framework through semi-structured interviews with escape room customers. This research not only aims to fill a significant gap in the academic literature but also to provide actionable insights for professionals seeking to better understand their customers through a customer journey or process-oriented approach.
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