Branding, Quality of Service and Verbal Advertising in Tourism: The Potential of Military Barracks

Different cities have different features. They have huge investments, looking for more tourists to raise the return on investment. Word of mouth communication is one of the cheapest and the most valuable ways to develop tourism that has attracted attention of many scholars. Military personnel can be viewed as a source of WOM, because most of them spend many days in different cities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of service quality on military personnel WOM with the mediating role of satisfaction, city image and their attitude toward the city. This research is descriptive applied in terms of purpose. Questionnaire was used to survey 390 military personnel in the north and north east of Tehran. Structural Equation Modeling and Smart PLS software were used to analyze the gathered data. Results show that services quality has a positive effect on tourist's satisfaction and city image. Also, Satisfaction and city image have positive effects on attitude toward the city. Finally, satisfaction, city image and attitude toward the city have positive effects on WOM.