The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Retention: Insights from Travel Agency Managers in the KRI

Kawar Abdullah Ali; Ehsan Muhsen Ahmed

doi:10.2478/mdke-2026-0013

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The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Retention: Insights from Travel Agency Managers in the KRI

Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy

Volume 14 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)

By: Kawar Abdullah Ali and Ehsan Muhsen Ahmed

Open Access

|Jun 2026

Figures & Tables

Conceptual framework of the study Source: own processing

Fornell & Larcker Criterion

Constructs	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
CRDIR (1)	0.922
CRIS (2)	0.672	0.892
CRRS (3)	0.733	0.746	0.904
CRSC (4)	0.729	0.756	0.798	0.888
CRSTF (5)	0.680	0.697	0.728	0.737	0.891
SQASN (6)	0.370	0.419	0.460	0.456	0.433	0.868
SQEMP (7)	0.401	0.482	0.494	0.493	0.455	0.451	0.890
SQRLB (8)	0.360	0.392	0.392	0.388	0.387	0.404	0.389	0.893
SQRSP (9)	0.351	0.429	0.416	0.429	0.376	0.469	0.394	0.385	0.878
SQTGB (10)	0.382	0.525	0.473	0.481	0.469	0.479	0.502	0.457	0.420	0.883

HTMT

Constructs	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
CRDIR (1)	-
CRIS (2)	0.727	-
CRRS (3)	0.797	0.801	-
CRSC (4)	0.789	0.809	0.859	-
CRSTF (5)	0.736	0.745	0.782	0.789	-
SQASN (6)	0.402	0.451	0.497	0.490	0.466	-
SQEMP (7)	0.434	0.515	0.531	0.527	0.486	0.486	-
SQRLB (8)	0.387	0.418	0.420	0.413	0.412	0.435	0.415	-
SQRSP (9)	0.379	0.459	0.447	0.459	0.402	0.507	0.423	0.411	-
SQTGB (10)	0.414	0.563	0.509	0.515	0.502	0.519	0.538	0.490	0.452	-

Results of the hypothesis testing

Hypothesis	Relationships	Std. Beta	Std. dev.	t-values	p-values	Confidence intervals		Decision
Direct effect						LLCI BC	ULCI BC
H1	SQTGB->CR	0.116	0.054	3.800**	0.000	0.108	0.288	Supported
H2	SQRLB->CR	0.053	0.045	2.379	0.009	0.041	0.188	Not Supported
H3	SQRSP->CR	0.080	0.075	1.741	0.041	0.024	0.273	Not Supported
H4	SQASN->CR	0.093	0.051	2.890**	0.002	0.070	0.234	Supported
H5	SQEMP->CR	0.188	0.046	5.579**	0.000	0.178	0.327	Supported

PLS predict Q-square value for the items of the endogenous constructs

Focal constructs	Q² predict	PLS-SEM_RMSE	PLS-SEM_MAE	LM_RMSE	LM_MAE	RMSE	MAE
CRDIR	0.233	0.878	0.618	0.923	0.654	−0.045	−0.036
CRIS	0.251	0.868	0.676	0.908	0.704	−0.040	−0.028
CRRS	0.278	0.853	0.656	0.878	0.677	−0.025	−0.021
CRSC	0.264	0.861	0.664	0.886	0.676	−0.025	−0.012
CRSTF	0.260	0.863	0.648	0.897	0.664	−0.034	−0.016

Demographic profile of study respondents (N = 353)

Items	Describe	Frequency	Percent (%)

Governorate	Duhok,	94	26.6%
	Erbil,	130	36.6%
	Sulaymaniyah,	128	36.3%
	Halabja	1	3%

Sex	Male	266	75.4%
Sex	Female	87	24.6%

Age	30 years and less	96	27.2%
	31 _ 45 years	209	59.2%
	46 _ 60 years	46	13%
	More than 60 years	2	6%

Educational qualifications	High School or below	25	7.1%
	Vocational Diploma	50	14.2%
	Undergraduate	263	74.5%
	Postgraduate	15	4.2%

Years of experience	5 years and less	150	42.5%
	6 – 10 years	179	50.7%
	over 10 years	24	6.8%

Collinearity statistics

Constructs	VIF
CRDIR	2.186
CRIS	1.894
CRRS	2.424
CRSC	2.237
CRSTF	1.863

Findings of outer loadings, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, composite reliability, and AVE

Constructs	Items	Outer loadings	Cronbach’s Alpha	Composite reliability (rho_a)	Composite reliability (rho_c)	Average variance extracted (AVE)
CRDIR	CRDIR1	0.919	0.912	0.915	0.944	0.85
	CRDIR2	0.930
	CRDIR3	0.916
CRIS	CRIS1	0.882	0.935	0.936	0.951	0.795
	CRIS2	0.886
	CRIS3	0.905
	CRIS4	0.903
	CRIS5	0.881
CRRS	CRRS1	0.913	0.926	0.926	0.947	0.818
	CRRS2	0.897
	CRRS3	0.906
	CRRS4	0.902
CRSC	CRSC1	0.889	0.933	0.934	0.949	0.789
	CRSC2	0.887
	CRSC3	0.890
	CRSC4	0.888
	CRSC5	0.889
CRSTF	CRSTF1	0.890	0.935	0.936	0.951	0.794
	CRSTF2	0.881
	CRSTF3	0.892
	CRSTF4	0.893
	CRSTF5	0.900
SQASN	SQASN1	0.851	0.918	0.92	0.939	0.753
	SQASN2	0.871
	SQASN3	0.871
	SQASN4	0.875
	SQASN5	0.872
SQEMP	SQEMP1	0.900	0.934	0.935	0.95	0.791
	SQEMP2	0.891
	SQEMP3	0.882
	SQEMP4	0.886
	SQEMP5	0.888
SQRLB	SQRLB1	0.884	0.936	0.937	0.952	0.797
	SQRLB2	0.896
	SQRLB3	0.900
	SQRLB4	0.900
	SQRLB5	0.884
SQRSP	SQRSP1	0.872	0.926	0.928	0.944	0.771
	SQRSP2	0.894
	SQRSP3	0.873
	SQRSP4	0.867
	SQRSP5	0.884
SQTGB	SQTGB1	0.888	0.929	0.929	0.946	0.779
	SQTGB2	0.892
	SQTGB3	0.880
	SQTGB4	0.888
	SQTGB5	0.864

References

Authors

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mdke-2026-0013 | Journal eISSN: 2392-8042

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Language: English

Page range: 211 - 231

Submitted on: Feb 10, 2026

Accepted on: Apr 21, 2026

Published on: Jun 29, 2026

Published by: Scoala Nationala de Studii Politice si Administrative

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

service quality,

customer retention,

travel agencies,

relationship marketing theory,

economic development,

Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Related subjects:

Business and economics,

Political economics,

Macroeconomics,

Business management,

Business management, other,

Social sciences,

Sociology,

Labor, trade unions,

Sociology of economy, organizations, and industry

© 2026 Kawar Abdullah Ali, Ehsan Muhsen Ahmed, published by Scoala Nationala de Studii Politice si Administrative
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Volume 14 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)

The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Retention: Insights from Travel Agency Managers in the KRI

Figures & Tables

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Fornell & Larcker Criterion

HTMT

Results of the hypothesis testing

PLS predict Q-square value for the items of the endogenous constructs

Demographic profile of study respondents (N = 353)

Collinearity statistics

Findings of outer loadings, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, composite reliability, and AVE

Paradigm

My account