Exploring the Service Quality Factors of Spa Business in Pattaya, Thailand

Authors

  • Chitlada Pinthong
  • Arinya Pongwat

Keywords:

Service quality, Spa, Senior spa-goers, Non-senior spa-goers

Abstract

Spa and wellness sector earns a significant income comparing to other tourism-related businesses. A spa business is considered a popular activity in Pattaya city, one of the most popular destinations in Thailand and ASEAN, for both domestic and international travelers. This study aimed to discover the important service quality factors shaping the spa-goers’ satisfactions, while senior spa-goers and non-senior spa-goers were explored and compared. The adopted SERVQUAL concept includes with five dimensions, namely, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The current study employs a mixed methodology. The qualitative study was conducted by using the netnography approach with opinion mining technique to analyze the online review, develop the word cloud, and identify the key themes of spa service quality in stage 1. The findings from stage 1 are utilized as the recommendation for the questionnaire development in stage 2. In stage 2, the quantitative analysis was employed to examine the experienced Pattaya spa-goers’ satisfaction toward thier spa experiences by using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and ANOVA analysis to compare the findings between senior spa-goers and non-senior spa-goers. The findings reveal that there are some significant differences between two groups, which contributes to both theoretical and practical implications. The limitations are the particular setting of focus destination and samples, while future research should overcome those issues.

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Published

2022-10-26