The concept of attribute importance has been used for years in marketing research. One of the primary uses of the concept is as a weighting variable through multiplication with other variables. This study empirically examines the role and utility of importance weights, as compared to unweighted variables, within the context of consumer satisfaction research in the lodging industry. The unweighted and importance-weighted variables are compared for their explanatory abilities in three different models and three different methods. The results consistently indicate that the unweighted variables outperform the weighted variables, espe cially when they are compared in the same models. Some methodological implications are discussed for future research.
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