The relationships between four concepts (involvement, commitment, loyalty, and habit) and consistency in behavior across leisure and tourism

• Four concepts were compared with one another on theoretical foundations and use in literature.
• Utility of four constructs was tested in predicting leisure-tourism consistency.
• Involvement, commitment, habit, and loyalty had different relationships with consistency.
• Social connections were important where a favorite leisure activity was the primary trip purpose.
• Identity centered in a leisure activity predicted participation irrespective of trip purpose.
• Habit was not linked to consistency in leisure and tourism behaviors.

Lack of clarity in conceptualizing involvement, commitment, habit, and loyalty has led to confusion in their applications in the study of leisure and tourism. This paper traces their classical meanings and analyzes their theoretical and conceptual similarity and dissimilarity. Relationships among the concepts were also examined in the context of understanding consistency in patterns of leisure and tourist behavior. Data were collected online using convenience sampling, yielding a usable sample of N = 706. Multiple regression analyses demonstrate that involvement, commitment, habit, and loyalty have different relationships with consistency (i.e., participating in a favored leisure pursuit in tourism contexts). Since the four concepts were found to have their own attributes and psychological processes, it is suggested that they should not be used interchangeably, and in practice, different marketing strategies should be adopted, even when applied to those who show consistency in their leisure and tourism activities and behaviors.