Beata Gavurova

Faculty of Management and Economics, 

Tomas Bata University in Zlin,

Mostni 5139, 760 01 Zlin, Czech Republic

gavurova@utb.cz

ORCID 0000-0002-0606-879X

Destination social environment and tourist loyalty: A fuzzy expert model for the Visegrad countries

Volodymyr Polishchuk

Faculty of Information Technology,

Uzhhorod National University, 

Narodna Square, 3, 88000, Uzhhorod, Ukraine;

Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnology, Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovak Republic

volodymyr.polishchuk@uzhnu.edu.ua, volodymyr.polishchuk@tuke.sk

ORCID 0000-0003-4586-1333

Abstract. This study develops an expert model for evaluating how the external social environment shapes destination loyalty in the Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). The model formalises tourists' expected and experienced positive and negative encounters with residents and tourism personnel and converts them into destination- and region-level loyalty assessments. A three-stage architecture combines Boolean algebra, fuzzy-set theory, fuzzy logic, knowledge-based aggregation, and multiple regression analysis. The empirical basis comprises 2,343 respondents who evaluated destinations visited in the V4 countries. First, the model derives normalised individual and destination assessments; then, it aggregates them at the regional level; and finally, it generates predicted loyalty scores for defined socioeconomic visitor profiles. An application to the Nitra, Moravian-Silesian, and Podkarpackie regions demonstrates substantial destination-level heterogeneity despite all three regional aggregates falling within the above-average category. Segment-specific predictions further show that aggregate regional rankings do not necessarily represent the evaluation of a particular visitor group. The model provides an interpretable decision-support instrument for destination management, market segmentation, service improvement, and scenario-based regional tourism policy. Formal re-estimation of the three illustrative regional regressions used 53, 46, and 43 complete cases; residual diagnostics motivated robust standard errors and bootstrap uncertainty intervals, while the Kruskal–Wallis comparison did not support statistically significant regional differences.

Received: September, 2025

1st Revision: May, 2026

Accepted: August, 2026

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2026/19-3/7

JEL Classification: Z33, Z38, O57

Keywords: destination loyalty, social environment, fuzzy expert model, socioeconomic segmentation, Visegrad countries