Using Performance Measurements to Explore the Influence of Service Quality Dimensions on Customer's Perception of Overall Value of a Nature Based Tourism Outfitter

Abstract

ABSTRACT Customers of leisure services have increased their expectations of experience providers in recentyears. As the competition among service providers has increased for customers, service providers have begun to focus efforts on assessing the quality of the experiences they provide for their guests. Using the findings from their investigations, leisure service providers seek to modify current program offerings, add new experiences that enhance the perceived quality of their experiences. The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of using service performance measurements to determine if customer's perception's of service performance significantly predicts their perception of trip value, likeliness to recommend, and likeliness to repurchase from the same outfitter, and overall quality in the context of white water rafting. A total of 309 guests of an outfitter were surveyed for this study. Service performance was measured within the context of four company-specific dimensions (Reservation, Transportation. Facilities, and Guides). MANOVA and discriminant analyses were used to test each of the four hypotheses. Results of the MANOVA revealed that reservations, facilities, transportation and guides do significantly predict, overall perceived value, the likelihood to recommend the experience next year, and overall quality. However, only transportation and facilities were significant when asked about repurchasing the trip from the same outfitter next year. The strongest predictor resulting from the discriminant analyses for three variables (overall perceived value, the likelihood to recommend these outfitters and overall quality) was reservations. In contrast the strongest predictor of repurchasing the experience from the same outfitter was transportation.