INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) Published online 21 June 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.737 Organisational Channel Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners in the USA Dae-Young Kim1,*, Xinran Y Lehto2 and Sheryl F Kline3 Hotel & Restaurant Management, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA College of Hospitality, Retail, & Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA ABSTRACT The purpose of the study is to compare the perception of advertising and communication channels between convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) and meeting planners in the USA By employing 245 of CVBs and 226 meeting planners through an online survey method, the results of the study reveal clear channel discrepancies between CVBs and meeting planners in terms of preference, attitude and usage of communication and advertising channels In addition, the study identifies different linkages between advertising channels and advertising effects in the two different groups Implications for industry practitioners as well as suggestions for future study are discussed Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Received 07 July 2008; Revised 04 February 2009; Accepted 12 May 2009 Keywords: information channel; organisational behaviour; CVBs; meeting planners INTRODUCTION M eetings and conventions represent one of the largest elements of the hospitality and tourism industry today According to a recent market report (Meetings *Correspondence to: Dr Dae-Young Kim, Assistant Professor, Hotel & Restaurant Management, University of Missouri, 219 Eckles Hall, Columbia, MO 65211 USA Email: kimdae@missouri.edu & Conventions, 2004), the meetings market was estimated to be a $40.8 billion industry in the USA in 2003 As an intermediary between convention attendees and convention suppliers, meeting planners have played an important role in the meetings and convention industry by selecting sites, organising meetings and coordinating services and events (Rutherford, 1990; Casanova et al., 2005) As a layer of destination marketing organisations, convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) are important information brokers and disseminators in the meetings and convention industry One of CVBs’ critical missions is to promote and brand their destination as a desirable place for meetings and conventions and other related group businesses through travel intermediaries such as a travel agency and meeting planner (Kim et al., 2004; Gartrell, 1994) In the meetings and convention industry, associations, host locations and attendees are considered the three major players in the meetings and convention industry (Oppermann and Chon, 1997) Literature on the issue of site selection is substantial Today, however, most research efforts have focused mainly on each player’s role, characteristics and channel preferences As a result, research about the meetings and convention industry might be fragmented considering the three major parts of the industry need to work together and complement one another in a coherent manner to ensure success Studies on meeting planners have mostly examined meeting planners’ perceptions (Bonn and Boyd, 1992; Oppermann, 1996, 1998; Upchurch et al., 1999; Baloglu and Love, 2001), preference and satisfaction (Choi and Boger, 2000; Hu and Hiemstra, 1996); Renaghan and Kay, 1987), interactions with hotels (Campbell and Shaw, Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 104 2000; Rutherford and Umbreit, 1993; Weber, 2001a) and profiling and comparison among different types of meeting planners (Bonn et al., 1994; Goldblatt, 2000; Jones, 2000; Sheehan et al., 2000) On the other hand, CVB-related studies are mostly in the areas of profiling study (Sims, 1990; O’Halloran, 1992; Morrison et al., 1998), managerial issues (Gartrell, 1992; Getz et al., 1998), information channel usage (Cheung and Law, 2002; Feng et al., 2004; Fesenmaier et al., 1992; Yuan et al., 2003, 2006) and branding and alliance (Blain et al., 2005; Palmer and Bejou, 1995) However, study on the two main players’ perspectives towards communication and advertising channels present neglected areas of research Despite a few studies (Polivka, 1996; Weber, 2001b) related to the relationship between CVBs and meeting planners, there is a substantial need to gain better understanding of the two groups’ inter-relationship in terms of their perception and usage of communication and advertising channel In organisational channel research, a substantial amount of literature proved that communication and advertising channels are adopted differently depending on the characteristics of an organisation, because each organisation has different organisational properties and resources (i.e Dewett and Jones, 2001; Dejonckheere et al., 2004) That is, the value of communication and advertising channel is determined by the organisational resources and characteristics in order to fully take advantage of the technology Therefore, there is a need to examine organisational channel adoption patterns based on different organisation types (i.e CVBs and meeting planners), organisational properties and environments Based on this recognition, the purpose of this study was to compare the perceptions of advertising (i.e TV, magazine, Internet, etc.) and communication (i.e fax, telephone, e-mail, etc.) channels between CVBs and meeting planners and to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the marketing communication dynamics of the convention industry The specific objectives of this study were to (i) compare perceptions and usage of channels between CVBs and meeting planners and (ii) identify and describe how CVBs and meeting planners are different in terms of the relationships between advertising channels and advertising effects Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd D.-Y Kim, X Y Lehto and S F Kline LITERATURE REVIEW Organisational communication behaviour According to Sheth (1996), research on organisational behaviour has simply exploded for three reasons since the early 1980s First, the shift to understanding and influencing consumers to become customers (industrial, institutional and trade) has led to a greater focus on organisational behaviour Secondly, both the academic journals and business professional organisations have encouraged research and publications on inter-organisation buying behaviour Finally, the marketing discipline is increasingly influenced by the disciplines of organisational behaviour, industrial organisations and transaction cost theories in economies Among the various issues in organisational research, it is noted that the most popular area of research has been the understanding of the information processing and channel adoption (Ward and Webster, 1991; Sheth, 1996; Hult et al., 2004) There are some important differences between individual and organisational decision-making (Solomon, 2001; Weiss and Heide, 1993) Some of these differences are summarised as follows: (1) Organisational decision-making normally involves many people, including those who the actual purchase, those who directly or indirectly influence the decisions and those who actually use the product or service (2) Organisational purchases are often made according to precise, technical specifications that require great knowledge about the product or service (3) Impulsive decision-making is unusual, because decision makers’ thinking modes are more analytical and controlled (4) Organisational decision-making often involves more of an emphasis on personal selling than on advertising or other forms of promotion Sometimes, dealing with organisational buyers typically requires more face-to-face communication Organisational channel choice In the marketing communication research area, information richness theory has been a major Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners stream of research surrounding the development of a rational channel choice model for making communication choice decisions among available communication channels Based on theoretical and empirical works (Daft and Macintosh, 1981; Daft and Lengel, 1984, 1986), it is proposed that the choice of communication channel ranges from lean to rich Moreover, lean channels, such as memos and other written documents, not carry as many communication cues as rich channels, such as face-to-face conversation, where immediate feedback and a wide variety of communication cues are available to both the sender and receiver of the respective message This theory further posits that managers will choose rich media for addressing problems of ambiguity, while lean media are appropriately selected to deliver factual information that serves to reduce uncertainty in managerial decisions (Daft and Trevino, 1987) Information richness theory provides basis for a prescriptive approach in which achieving a match between information processing requirements and communication channels was posited as essential for organisational effectiveness (Daft and Lengel, 1986) Gradually, it came to be understood as a descriptive theory of how employees and managers make media choices (Daft and Trevino, 1987; Trevino et al., 1987; Russ et al., 1990) Originally developed for traditional means of intraorganisational communication, such as faceto-face meetings, telephone conversations, inter-office memos and printed reports, information richness theory has been extended to new communication media, including e-mail (Trevino et al., 1987) Daft and Lengel (1986) argued that communication transactions that can overcome different frames of reference or clarify ambiguous issues to change issues in a timely manner are rich, and those that require a long time to enable understanding or that cannot overcome different perspectives are lean Information richness theory suggests that intra-organisational communication can be ordered on a continuum from leanest to richest as follows: (i) numeric documents; (ii) impersonal written documents; (iii) personal letters or memos; (iv) telephone; and (v) face-to-face meetings Lean communication media, including e-mail, memos and letters, might be approCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 105 priate for routine, analysable tasks such as communicating rules, standard operating procedures, plans and schedules However, lean media lack a personal focus and the ability to transmit non-verbal cues and provide immediate feedback (Trevino et al., 1987; Rice, 1991) Channel effects In terms of the characteristics of media channels, a common distinction made is between broadcast such as TV and radio, and print, such as newspapers and magazines (Assael, 1981; Bendizen, 1993) Broadcast media are considered low-involvement channels, whereas print media are generally regarded as high-involvement channels (Krugman, 1969) Television, in particular, produces low personal involvement because the rate of viewing and understanding is out of the viewer’s control That is, television is not a highly selective medium in terms of audience selectivity It offers neither the geographic selectivity of newspapers nor the demographic selectivity of the specialised magazines Instead, television is a non-selective medium reaching a mass audience Creatively, television offers sight, sound, motion and colour So while viewer attentiveness to commercials is likely to be low, television contains an intrusive power to force itself on viewers (Nylen, 1986) In contrast, print media enable the reader to set the pace and, therefore, provide the opportunity for making connections and dwelling on points of interest The result is that print media offers a more comfortable learning environment whereby information can be more easily absorbed and integrated For instance, magazines offer high-quality reproduction and good colour, but most importantly, they are a self-interest medium for readers Moreover, printed materials offer longer life than most media (Nylen, 1986) Thus, print messages are more likely to lead to a change in attitude and behaviour Accordingly, it seems logical to infer that television is a more effective medium for quick messages, while print media are expected to be more effective in persuading customers when brand alternatives must be carefully compared TV advertising is designed to maintain familiarity with a brand and reinforce positive Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 106 experiences, while the messages delivered by print media are likely to lead to favourable behavioural responses Within the context of hospitality and tourism, it is also clearly noted that each advertising channel distinctively influence different types of audience’s perception and attitude due to their different characteristics (Kim et al., 2005) HYPOTHESES There has been substantial empirical research conducted on the impact of different types of organisations on channel preferences (Capon et al., 1992, 1996; Lee and Whang, 2001) In particular, organisational characteristics (i.e supplier firm and customer firm) are an enduring quality of organisations, which influence employees’ attitudes and preferences for communication channels (Taguiri and Litwin, 1968) Based on the literature review, this study hypothesises that: H1: There are different perceptions of communication channels between CVB marketers and meeting planners H2 There are different usages of main advertising channels between CVB marketers and meeting planners H3 There are different preferences of advertising channels between CVB marketers and meeting planners H4 There are different perceptions of advertising channels between CVB marketers and meeting planners H5 There are different relationships between preferred channel and advertising effects between CVB marketers and meeting planners METHODOLOGY Since the purpose of this study was to compare CVBs’ and meeting planners’ channel preferences and usage, the data used for this study were obtained from two different sources In the case of CVBs, the sample of CVBs was drawn from the membership list of Destination Marketing Association International Only CVB marketers in charge of promoting their Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd D.-Y Kim, X Y Lehto and S F Kline destinations and conventions (i.e destination marketers, destination promoters, directors of sales, etc.) were selected because of the study focus on the communication channel between CVBs and meeting planners The meeting planner sample was drawn from the membership list of Professional Convention Management Association From this membership list, only meeting planners responsible for promoting destinations and communicating with travellers and CVBs were selected Before obtaining the valid sample list based on the sampling criteria, a cross checking between the two lists was performed to ensure mutual exclusiveness in the two groups Moreover, only one meeting planner per organisation was chosen in order to avoid multiple responses from an organisation Applying these samplescreening criteria, a total of 1124 potential meeting planner respondents was obtained The survey instrument was comprised of 73 questions focusing largely on CVBs’ and meeting planners’ responses on: (i) marketing channel usage and preferences; (ii) general attitudes towards each advertising and communication channel; (iii) technology experience; (iv) constructs influencing attitudes towards and behavioural intention in the technology adaptation model; (v) organisations’ resources and technology support; and (vi) demographic information The items for the 10 constructs in the technology adaptation model employed Venkatesh et al.’s (2003) Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology items The total 39 items based on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; = strongly agree) were modified within the context of hospitality and tourism marketing The survey was conducted from May 15th to June 10th, 2006 through the e-survey servers In order to increase the response rate, a personalised e-mail showing each individual’s first and last name was sent and four financial prizes ($50 dollar gift cards) were offered as incentives A follow-up personalised reminder e-mail was sent two times on May 24th and June 1st, respectively, to maximise the return rates These efforts resulted in 245 of CVB and 226 meeting planners completed responses for 24.01% and 20.1% response rates, respectively Preliminary analyses using chi-square tests were conducted separately for the both groups Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners to investigate the extent and nature of response bias In particular, the early respondents (CVBs = 175; meeting planners = 142) were compared to the follow-up respondents (CVBs = 70; meeting planners = 84) in terms of the demographic, professional and geographic information The results of these analyses showed that only the type of meeting planners was significantly different (at p = 0.05) RESULTS The demographic profiles of the respondents are summarised in Table Both sampled groups appear to be fairly representative of the convention industry reality For the sample of CVB marketers, there were slightly more females (57%) than males, while about 60% of the respondents were in the age range of 31–50 years One notable characteristic of the respondents was that a majority (84%) of the CVB respondents were highly educated (bachelor’s degree or higher) In regard to the profile of meeting planners, the most interesting characteristic of the meeting planners was the majority of meeting planners were female (81.7%) According to Jackson (2003), 20 years ago the convention and meetings sector was mostly 107 consisted of men, but as the industry grew out of administrative departments, women in clerical positions were planning meetings, and now 89.9% of meeting managers and 85.8% of meeting directors are women Another recent market report (Meetings Focus, 2005) also showed that the convention and meetings sector was overwhelmingly comprised of women, as the survey found The two major age groupings of respondents were 31–40 (32.1%) and 41–50 years (31.2%) It was also observed that over 80% of meeting planners have at least a bachelor’s degree Communication channels include fax, tra-ditional mail, e-mail, Internet messenger, telephone and the Web Parallel questions were asked on specific communication channels rather than general communication channels The results showed that there were different perceptions of communication channel usefulness between the two groups (H1 was supported) (see Table 2) More specifically, there were significant differences between the two groups for five out of six communication channels CVBs preferred to use telephone, traditional mail and websites for communicating with meeting planners, whereas meeting planners favoured e-mail and fax communications Table Demographic characteristics of respondents Characteristics Gender CVBs Meeting planners Frequency % Frequency % Chi-square Female Male 139 105 57.0 43.0 183 41 81.7 18.3 33.27** Age (years) 21–30 31–40 41–50 51–60 61–70 Over 71 20 57 86 60 20 8.2 23.5 35.4 24.7 8.2 0.0 28 71 69 44 12.7 32.1 31.2 19.9 2.7 1.4 35 150 55 1.6 14.3 61.5 22.5 43 134 44 1.8 19.1 59.6 19.6 Education High school Some college Bachelor’s degree Master’s or PhD 16.72** 2.18 ** p < 0.01 CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 108 D.-Y Kim, X Y Lehto and S F Kline Table Perceived usefulness of communication channels CVBs (n = 245) Communication channel Fax Traditional mail e-mail Internet messenger Telephone WWW MP (n = 226) Mean (ranking) t 1.46 (5) 2.44 (4) 3.27 (2) 1.43 (6) 3.30 (1) 3.11 (3) 1.75 (5) 1.92 (4) 3.43 (1) 1.35 (6) 2.88 (3) 2.89 (2) −2.62** 5.46** −1.98* 0.58 4.30** 2.16* * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 Measured on a five-point Likert-type scale: not useful (1), somewhat useful (2), useful (3), very useful (4) CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; MP, meeting planners Table Comparison of primary advertising channels CVBs (n = 245) Advertising channels Trade magazines Consumer magazines Portal website CVB website Brochures Newspapers TV Radio Personal sales and word of mouth MP (n = 226) Frequency (%) 57 (23.3) 96 (39.2) (1.2) 13 (5.3) 23 (9.4) 11 (4.5) 23 (9.4) (1.2) 16 (6.5) Chi-square 28 (12.4) (0.4) (2.2) 32 (14.2) 11 (4.9) 0 149 (65.9) 259.56** ** p < 0.01 CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; MP, meeting planners Meeting planners had higher preferences for new channels (e-mail and the Web) over traditional ones (traditional mail and fax) To measure differences in advertising channel usage, one set of equivalent questions was given to the two groups In the set of parallel questions, CVBs were regarded as senders of advertisements and meeting planners as audiences In order to identify main advertising channels, advertising budget apportionments were used for CVBs (i.e ‘Which advertising channel does your organisation spend the most amount of money for advertising and promotion?’) The degree of influence of advertising channel was employed for meeting planners (i.e ‘Overall, which advertising channel influences you the most in regard to your site selection?’) The results of the comparison between the two groups showed statistical differences based on a chi-square test Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd One notable finding was that about 66% of the meeting planners indicated that personal sales and word of mouth (WOM) was the most influential channel CVB websites (14.2%) were the second most influential, followed by trade magazines (12.4%) However, the CVB respondents indicated that two printed materials; consumer (39.2%) and trade magazines (23.3%), were where they allocated the majority of their advertising budgets This appears to suggest that there are advertising channel discrepancies between CVBs and meeting planners (H2 is supported) (see Table 3) Even with the fact that not all of CVBs’ advertising is focused on meeting planners, meeting planners are still one of their main target markets; about 40% of CVB respondents counted meeting planners as their main target market The results also illustrated that meeting planners are more likely to be influenced by Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners personal sales, WOM and CVB websites Some 14.2% of the meeting planners rated CVB websites as the most influential channel, but only 5.3% of CVBs spent a majority of their advertising budgets on their websites Some 62.5% of CVB respondents indicated that their main advertising channels were either trade or consumer magazines, but only 12.8% of meeting planners responded that they were influenced the most by these two types of magazine advertisements The next phase of channel comparison was about channel usage and perception of usefulness of each advertising channel Except for trade magazines and CVB websites, all channels showed statistically significantly differences for channel usage by chi-square tests (H3 is supported) In terms of perceived advertising effects, CVB respondents’ perceptions of virtually all channels were higher than meeting planners’ scores (H4 was supported) (see Table 4) It can reasonably be assumed that CVBs as advertisers or advertising sponsors are more likely to perceive advertising effects in a more positive way A critical point of the result is that there is no significant difference for CVB websites and trade magazines in terms of general usage Moreover, CVB websites were the most used communication channel by the two groups Additionally, both groups perceived CVB Websites to be more useful than other channels Correspondence analysis was employed to examine the underlying relationships between advertising channels and perceived advertising effects for both groups This is an interdependence technique suited for simultaneous analysis of multiple categorical data A set of objects and attributes can be presented graphically in a joint space to reveal the relations among row and column variables, which cannot easily be exposed by multiple pair-wise comparisons (Hair et al., 1998; Weller and Romney, 1990) Correspondence analysis provides singular values that are statistical measures describing the number of dimensions and the proportion of variance explained by each dimension According to Hair et al (1998), the values should be greater than 0.20 to be accepted as a viable dimension This study shows that two dimensions’ singular values for both groups were over 0.20 With regard to Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 109 the explained proportion of inertia between the nine advertising channels and five advertising effects in CVBs, the first two dimensions accounted for 81.0% of the variance, with 44.6% of the variance (singular value = 0.28) accounted for by the first dimension and 36.4% of the variance (singular value = 0.26) accounted for by the second dimension The results of this analysis are visualised in Figure Based on the CVB respondents’ perspective, consumer magazines had a strong linkage to delivering ‘detailed information’ and generating ‘request information’ Personal sales and WOM and trade magazines appeared to be more closely related to creating a ‘positive image of destination’ It was notable that the results for the other advertising channels included in the study (i.e Internet, newspapers, TV and radio) were not clearly related to any of the various advertising effect measures For the meeting planner group, the two-dimensional solution explained 92% of the variance in the data, with the first dimension accounting for 67% (singular value = 0.37) and the second dimension accounting for 25% (singular value = 0.23) The correspondence map for meeting planners was somewhat different than for the CVB respondents As shown in Figure 2, personal sales and WOM had strong linkages to ‘request information’, obtaining ‘detailed information’ and ‘awareness of destinations’ Similar to CVBs, trade magazines were closely related to creating a ‘positive image of destination’ The two correspondence analyses indicated that the relationship between advertising channels and effects varied between the CVB respondents and meeting planners (H5 is supported) There were, however, some common relationships between the two First, trade magazines had a strong linkage to creating a ‘positive image’ of the destination Apart from trade and consumer magazines, and personal sales/WOM, all other channels did not have any strong relationships with advertising effects for both groups CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The results of this study show that there are clear channel discrepancies between CVB respondents and meeting planners in term of Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 110 D.-Y Kim, X Y Lehto and S F Kline Table Comparison of the advertising channel usage and perceived usefulness CVBs Meeting planners Frequency (%) mean Frequency (%) mean Chi-square Use of trade magazines Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 183 (75.0) 3.44 3.51 3.03 3.51 152 (67.9) 3.11 3.17 3.13 3.64 2.93 Use of consumer magazines Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 203 (83.5) 3.88 3.91 3.68 3.79 70 (31.4) 3.11 3.05 2.92 3.34 130.34** Use of portal websites Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 66 (27.2) 3.62 3.39 3.37 3.33 78 (35.3) 2.91 3.14 3.19 2.94 3.58* Use of CVB websites Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 219 (90.9) 4.26 4.41 4.15 4.12 190 (86.4) 3.09 3.90 3.51 3.35 2.36 Use of collateral/brochures Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 231 (95.1) 4.06 4.26 3.76 3.97 149 (67.7) 3.01 3.51 3.35 3.50 58.64** Use of newspapers Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 148 (61.7) 3.65 3.63 3.50 3.72 22 (9.8) 2.39 2.51 2.49 2.60 134.15** Use of TV Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 84 (35.0) 4.00 4.21 3.58 4.01 30 (13.5) 2.68 2.41 2.51 2.80 28.65** Use of radio Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding 94 (39.0) 3.70 3.47 3.17 3.74 (1.8) 1.59 1.47 1.53 1.56 95.00** 228 (95.4) 4.42 4.41 4.28 4.35 219 (99.5) 4.03 3.98 4.02 3.99 Channel advertising effects Use of personal sales/WOM Awareness Positive image Request information Reminding t 3.37** 3.66** −0.97 −1.50 7.22** 8.32** 6.40** 4.19** 4.38** 1.52 1.08 2.52* 12.46** 7.29** 7.22** 8.21** 11.34** 8.78** 4.16** 5.14** 7.60** 6.38** 5.38** 6.89** 6.61** 9.89** 5.08** 6.23** 8.81** 8.88** 6.07** 10.14** 7.74* 5.40** 5.63** 3.26** 4.77** * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 Measured on a five-point Likert-type scale: not very useful (1), extremely useful (5) CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; WOM, word of mouth Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners 111 2.0 Portal Web 1.0 Awareness CVB Web Brochures Trade M Positive image 0.0 Detailed Info Personal Sales Consumer Magazine TV Reminding Request info –1.0 Newspapers Radio –2.0 –1.5 –1.0 –0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 Figure Correspondence analysis of advertising channels and effects for CVBs 1.5 1.0 Portal Web Reminding Brochures Consumer Magazines 0.5 CVB Web Request info Detailed info 0.0 Personal sales Awareness –0.5 Trade M Positive image –1.0 –1.5 –2.0 –3.5 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 Figure Correspondence analysis of advertising channels and effects for meetings planners preferences and usage of communication and advertising channels The broad parameters laid out in this study have important implications especially for CVB marketing activities CVBs’ main advertising channels (i.e magaCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd zines, brochures and TV) are different from the advertising media that meeting planners mainly receive information from Particularly, it appears that the most influential advertising channel for meeting planners is personal sales Int J Tourism Res 12, 103–115 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Tourists’ Safety Perception and Trip Satisfaction services upon arrival in Turkey may not be up to the expected level of some European tourists because of frequent traffic problems experienced in the seemingly haphazard Turkish traffic system Traffic routes for ground transportation need to be designed keeping this unavoidable fact of Turkey in perspective Although only by four respondents, problems with excursions were also reported, but with the highest satisfaction level with the solution The typical tendency of Turkish tour guides to spare a long time for shopping in designated shops might be one reason for those problems related to excursions To encourage more spending, shop visits during excursions are usually a bit longer than desired by typical tourists; however, these shop visits are also entertaining, coloured by typical Turkish hospitality Despite the entertainment during these shop visits, the insistent attitude of the salesmen in those shops visited during the excursions and the no return or exchange policy applied by most Turkish retailers might result in some visitors having tainted experiences Also, knowing that the European income level is well above Turkish standards, some salesmen can be a little overzealous in terms of price mark-ups for tourists Hence, the lowest satisfaction was related with solutions to shopping problems Therefore, educational campaigns must be undertaken by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture to warn against ‘killing the goose laying the golden egg’ by being too greedy The stepwise regression results revealed that the visitors’ perception of Turkey in terms of hygiene and health and safety and security, along with the number of days spent in Turkey, existence of product or service failure and education and nationality variables are significant in explaining their trip satisfaction In other words, positive perception of Turkey’s hygiene and health and safety and security help visitors to have greater satisfaction with their trip, especially if they stay longer and enjoy their trip without a product or service failure, while German tourists and tourists with a secondary school degree are more likely to have less satisfaction with their trip With the highest coefficient, the hygiene and health variable was found to be more influential than all the other factors in explaining trip satisfaction Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 189 One can argue that the direction of the relationship between safety and security perception and satisfaction is not guaranteed to be one-way A consumer who has a better perception of safety and security may provide better satisfaction levels; however, it is also possible to say that a satisfied consumer can provide better perception of safety and security Regardless, cleanliness and healthiness conditions are of utmost importance for the visitors and need to be paid extra attention by authorities Ironically, it is a very usual sight in everyday excursions to have a load of garbage along trails or historical sights, even around picnic areas Public education and tourist information using proper signage at tourist sights are necessary to overcome this problem Regression results revealed that longer trips result in greater satisfaction One plausible explanation is that a longer stay results in increased familiarity and the development of positive cognitive and affective images, as suggested by Fakeye and Crompton (1991) and Vogt and Andereck (2003) This explanation is encouraging for the all-inclusive package policy of the Turkish tourism industry However, the underlying reason for the greater satisfaction of long-stayers could also be the extra bargain deals they get through wholesalers that have huge bargaining power over the Turkish tourism industry This could be commensurate with the high rate of secondary school graduates in the sample, who are, ironically, more likely to have less satisfaction with their trip, maybe due to the high expectations they have for potentially hard-earned money they spend for their vacation Thus, attraction of lower income tourist segments by offering low-priced all-inclusive package trips, which has been a common phenomenon in Turkey, might be actually working against the interests of the Turkish tourism industry Not surprisingly, the results showed that product or service failure has a negative relationship with trip satisfaction A logical suggestion is that product or service failure needs to be avoided; however, product or service failure can be inevitable in the Turkish tourism system, which operates within a developing country context Thus, effective service recovery techniques need to be in place to restore consumer trust (Dawar and Pillutla, 2000; Int J Tourism Res 12, 179–192 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 190 Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Aleman, 2001) Though not very developed, the Turkish tourism industry is blessed with a hospitable workforce Through the empowerment and motivation of service providers, a warm and welcoming service interface can be encouraged to overcome the negative consequences of any potential failure The existence of failure, a solution and the satisfaction with the solution to failure in individual product components such as accommodation, transportation, F&B, etc., were not included in the regression analysis Future studies can include these variables to see their relative impact on trip satisfaction The stepwise regression test results are significant with very small R2 value (0.237) There are different plausible arguments for this low R2 value First, as argued by Pindiyck and 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Visitors’ Experiences at Hot Spring Recreation Areas in Taiwan Tsung-Hung Lee* Graduate School of Leisure and Exercise Studies, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Touliu, Yunlin, Taiwan ABSTRACT This study assessed the recreational experiences of tourists and aims to discuss the sustainable development of hot spring recreation areas in Taiwan The study employed questionnaires that included variables measuring importance, satisfaction, sustainable development, and demographic and recreational characteristics The rate of repeat visits was extremely high Moreover, tourists strongly agreed that hot spring recreation areas should develop ecotourism programmes This study concludes that hot spring recreation areas could utilise their natural landscapes, hot spring quality, hotel service quality and proximity to neighbouring destinations to develop themselves Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Received 19 July 2007; Revised 25 June 2009; Accepted 30 June 2009 Keywords: recreational experiences; hot spring; sustainable development; Taiwan INTRODUCTION H ot springs are defined as springs whose water temperature exceeds that of the ground water or average air temperature (LaMoreaux and Tanner, 2001) In Taiwan, hot springs contain water that has seeped down through a bedrock fracture, and the water temperature of these springs equals or *Correspondence to: T.-H Lee, Graduate School of Leisure and Exercise Studies, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, 123, Sec University Road, Touliu, Yunlin, Taiwan Email: thlee@yuntech.edu.tw exceeds 30 degrees centigrade (Water Resources Agency, 2003) Taiwan is located on the fault line that separates the Euro-Asian and Philippine continental plates; it is therefore affected by frequent mountain building Consequently, approximately 75% of Taiwan’s land mass is mountainous Moreover, Taiwan lies between an ocean trench and a volcanic system These conditions have led to a wide distribution of hot springs, which occur in the low to midaltitude mountain areas (Chang, 2001) Taiwan has more than 100 breathtaking scenic hot spring recreation areas mostly concentrated in Yangmingshan and Wulai in northern Taiwan; Kukuan, Lushan, and Tungpu in central Taiwan; Kuanshilian, Paolai, and Shizhonghsui in southern Taiwan; and Chiaohsi and Chihpen in eastern Taiwan (Chang, 2001) Based on their negative ion composition, the hot springs are divided into three types: bicarbonate springs, chloride springs and sulfate springs (Chen et al., 2001; Water Resources Agency, 2003) Owing to both their diversity and to their surrounding mountain landscapes, hot springs have become one of the most popular types of recreation areas in Taiwan (Tourism Bureau, 2007) LITERATURE REVIEW Recreation describes pleasurable activity pursued for purposes of leisure A tourist’s satisfaction comes from the activity component of an experience (Zins, 2002; Quan and Wang, 2004) The recreational experience is a multiphase conception comprising of the anticipation time, travel to the experience, on-site participation, travel back and recollection phases (Borrie and Roggenbuck, 2001) Many factors, such as variation in demographic features, money, time and supply, affect recreational activity (Mannell and Iso-Ahola, 1987; Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 194 Lee et al., 1994) The recreational behaviour of tourists is affected by involvement, place attachment, social factors and the characteristics of the recreational areas (Hull et al., 1996; Kyle et al., 2004; Gross and Brown, 2006) Furthermore, the leisure attitude positively affects intrinsic motivation; this intrinsic motivation then affects participation in and satisfaction with the recreational activity (Raghheb and Tate, 1993; Lee, 2009) Recreational satisfaction is the best indicator to assess the recreational experiences of tourists in the on-site phase (Huan et al., 2000; Lee, 2003, 2007) Tourists regard natural landscapes, equipment, traffic and service quality as the most important factors while travelling in both the forest recreation areas and the isolated islands of Taiwan (Lee, 2003, 2007) Recreational satisfaction is understood as the positive perception or feeling a visitor develops, elicits or gains as a result of his or her engagement in recreational activities This satisfaction expresses the degree of pleasure the visitor associates with his or her recreational experiences and situations (Beard and Ragheb, 1980) Leisure researchers use satisfaction to assess the psychological benefits derived from leisure experiences (Manning, 1986; Mannell and IsoAhola, 1987) Typically, recreational satisfaction is measured by one of two methods The most common method uses multi-item scales (Beard and Ragheb, 1980; Fornell, 1992; Ragheb and Tate, 1993; Heung and Qu, 2000; Huan et al., 2000; Lee, 2009), while the other method applies a single measure of overall satisfaction (Dorfman, 1979; Bigné et al., 2001; Cole and Scott, 2004; Lee, 2007) The degree of satisfaction is determined by tourists’ subjective or objective assessments, such as recreational attitudes, motivations, subjective norms, perceived behavioural controls and travel images (Dorfman, 1979; Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen and Driver, 1992; Raghheb and Tate, 1993; Bigné et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2004; Chen and Tsai, 2007; Lee, 2007) Recreational satisfaction can also positively affect behavioural intentions, behaviours and post-recreation behaviours (Heung and Qu, 2000; Bigné et al., 2001; Cole et al., 2002; Heung et al., 2002; Lee et al., 2004; Yüksel and Yüksel, 2007) Previous studies have discussed the marketing management and recreational behaviour of Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd T.-H Lee hot spring recreation areas in Taiwan Pao (2000) examined a case study of market segmentation in a resort hotel in the Chipen hot spring recreation area of eastern Taiwan Moreover, Hwang et al (2002) applied EngelBlackwell-Miniard (EBM; Engel et al., 1995) consumer decision-making model to examine consumer behaviour in hot spring recreational areas in Taipei, which are in northern Taiwan Additionally, Fang (2002) examined the relationships between recreational involvement and experience using a case study of the Peitou hot spring recreation area in northern Taiwan It should be noted, however, that some of these previous studies were case studies in consumer behaviour (Pao, 2000; Fang, 2002; Hwang et al., 2002), and they used convenience sampling to collect their data Such investigations cannot yield good samples of tourists for the hot spring recreation areas Second, as their sample sizes were small (464, 281 and 251 individual respondents respectively), their sampling errors with 95% confidence were 4.5%, 5.8 %, and 6.2% respectively (Pao, 2000; Fang, 2002; Hwang et al., 2002) Third, while most of the studies conducted market segmentation, they focused almost exclusively on recreational experiences (Pao, 2000; Fang, 2002; Hwang et al., 2002) Thus, this study aims to (i) survey the profiles and travel characteristics of tourists, (ii) study the recreational experiences of tourists, and (iii) discuss the sustainable development of hot spring recreation areas METHODS Questionnaire A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted to assess tourist experiences at hot spring recreation areas First, the questions in the questionnaire were designed according to a review of the literature The questionnaire included the variables of importance, satisfaction, sustainable development and demographic and recreational characteristics Second, a pre-test was conducted on 18 January 2003 at the Shizhonghsui hot spring recreation area using the systematic sampling method (one tourist in every 10 was sampled) at the exit of the hot spring hotel from 0800 to 1400 hours A total of 156 questionnaires were Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Visitors’ Hot Spring Experiences in Taiwan administered; in these, 16 tourists refused to respond and 14 were invalid, resulting in a total of 126 valid questionnaires An item analysis was conducted to improve the instructions and assessments of these Likert scales Third, the questionnaires were then revised based on item analysis results, tourists’ comments about whether the content of the questionnaires was clear enough, and the comments of one manager and one researcher Three items have been reworded for their comprehension from feedbacks of one manager No items have been deleted after the pilot study The final questionnaire comprised of four parts, outlined in the following sections Importance The section was developed based on the findings in the studies of Manning (1986) and Lee (2003) Thirteen items, containing constructs of landscapes, service quality, spa quality and traffic convenience, were used to measure the level of importance that respondents designated for each aspect of the hot spring recreational experience A five-point Likert scale was used, ranging from strongly unimportant at to strongly important at Satisfaction Visitors’ multi-item satisfaction scales were developed, consistent with the studies of Manning (1986), Bigné et al (2001) and Lee (2003) Fourteen items, containing constructs of landscapes, service quality, spa quality and traffic convenience, were used to measure the level of satisfaction that respondents designated for each aspect of this hot spring recreational experience A five-point Likert scale was used, ranging from strongly dissatisfied at to strongly satisfied at Sustainable development The sustainability development of an enterprise depends on building customer loyalty (Jones and Sasser, 1995; Petrick, 2004) Tourists’ opinions were used to assess the likelihood of sustainable development in hot spring recreation areas First, the respondents were asked about their willingness to revisit the site Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 195 Second, the respondents were asked if they agreed that hot spring tourism should be promoted and developed Third, the respondents were asked if they agreed that sustainable ecotourism should be developed in hot spring recreation areas Demographic and recreational characteristics The demographic variables were measured according to the following categories: gender, age, marital status, education, employment status, residence and income Recreational characteristics were categorised as follows: motivation, frequency, time spent, travel companions, traffic, souvenirs purchased, travel expenses and whether other sightseeing spots were visited Sampling This study used stratified random sampling to select the hotels in the recreation areas The first stratification was the northern, central, southern and eastern regions The second stratification was the scale of the hot spring recreation areas (large scale or small scale) in each region Meanwhile, the third stratification was the scale of the hotels (large scale or small scale) in each sampled hot spring recreation area All of the sampled study areas are listed in Table Then, two hotels were selected using the simple random sampling method from each study area For the face-to-face questionnaires, a one-day survey was conducted in each hot spring recreation area to sample the tourist As most of the hot spring spas were administered by the hotels in the hot spring recreation areas, most visitors stayed in the hotel or purchased a ticket from the hotel for the hot spring spas The respondents were selected using the systematic sampling method (one tourist out of every 20 was sampled) at the hotel exit when they were leaving the hot spring recreation areas The questionnaires surveys were conducted on Saturday or Sunday in winter (peak season) and summer (off season) The field surveys were carried out in the peak season on 8, 9, 14, 15, 21, 22, 27 and 28 February 2003; in the off seasons they were Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 196 T.-H Lee Table The study areas Region Scale Northern region Central region Southern region Eastern region Large Peitou Wulai Lushan Tungpu Bulao Shizhonghsui Chiaohsi Chihpen Small Cingcyuan Jinshan Taian Chunyang Shihdong Dagangshan Jinlun Wulu conducted on 5, 6, 11, 12, 25, 26 July, and 9, 16, 17, 23 and 24 August 2003 Data analysis All data were analysed by SPSS (version 12.0 for Windows) statistical software The categorical variables were analysed using the nonparametric tests of the chi-square test (twotailed test, at 0.05 levels) The non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test was employed to compare more than two independent samples Moreover, a Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to determine the difference between related samples of importance and satisfaction, and non-parametric Kendall correlations were used to examine relationships between related samples of importance and satisfaction RESULTS Sampling error, reliability and validity One thousand forty-eight questionnaires were administered; 95 respondents refused to answer, and 16 questionnaires were invalid because they were incomplete, leaving a total of 937 valid questionnaires There was 95% confidence that the survey data would be accurate within 3.2% Moreover, the Cronbach’s α of the importance, satisfaction and sustainable development items — 0.8759, 0.8866 and 0.7162 respectively — all exceeded the 0.70 benchmark (DeVellis, 1991; Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994), indicating that this instrument has good reliability Additionally, the final questionnaires were revised through items analysis, and the comments by one researcher and one of the managers of a hot spring recreation area indicated that this questionnaire had high content validity Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Demographic and recreational characteristics The demographic variables of respondents are listed in Table The first and second largest numbers were as follows: 58.0% male and 42.0% female; 52.0% married and 48.0% unmarried; 38.0% age 21 to 30 years old and 32.5% age 31 to 40 years old; 33.6% employed fulltime and 17.7% students; 56.3% with a university level educational and 32.1% with a high school level educational; 40.3% with monthly income from 20 000 to 40 000 NT$ and 26.9% from 40 000 to 60 000 NT$; and 30.1% living in the Taipei region and 23.1% living in the Kaohsiung region Regarding the geographic locations for the northern, central, southern and eastern regions of the hot spring recreation areas, in the northern region 68.1% of the tourists lived in the Taipei region; in the central region 41.0% of the tourists lived in Taichung, Chunghu and Nantou; in the southern region, 65.3% of the tourists lived in the Kaohsiung region; in the eastern region 30.4% of the tourists lived in Yilan, Hulan and Taitung These data suggest that there was a strong regional preference among hot spring visitors which may be owed to the greater convenience of neighbouring hot spring recreation areas Some 567 questionnaires were administered in the winter and 370 in the summer; the different seasons had a significant effect on the number of tourists (χ2 = 41.42, d.f = 1, p < 0.001) These findings suggest that the number of tourists in hot spring recreation areas exhibits a distinct peak- and off-season pattern in Taiwan The travel characteristics of respondents are shown in Table The most common motivation for tourists was the desire for a holiday (38.9%), followed by attraction to the area’s reputation (20.3%) Many tourists were on Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Visitors’ Hot Spring Experiences in Taiwan 197 Table Demographic characteristics of respondents Variables N (valid) Percentage (%) Gender Male Female 535 388 58.0 42.0 Marital status Married Unmarried 479 443 52.0 48.0 Age 16–20 years 21–30 years 31–40 years 41–50 years 51–60 years 61 years and older 61 351 300 149 50 13 6.6 38.0 32.5 16.1 5.4 1.4 Employment status Office or teacher Doctor, lawyer, writer, engineer, etc Farmer Employed full-time Storekeeper Homemaker Student Retired or none 147 108 16 309 98 54 163 24 16 11.8 1.7 33.6 10.7 5.9 17.7 2.6 Level of education Junior high school or below High school University or college Graduate school 48 297 520 59 5.2 32.1 56.3 6.4 Income/monthly (NT$*) Ϲ20 000 20 001 to 40 000 40 001 to 60 000 м60 001 136 372 248 166 14.8 40.3 26.9 18.0 Residence Taipei region Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli Taichung, Changhua, Nantou Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan Kaohsiung region Yilan, Hualien, Taitung Isolated inlands and others 278 131 144 71 209 87 30.1 14.2 15.6 7.7 23.1 2.0 0.3 * 1US$ = 32.87 NT$ (data by 16 July 2007) their first visit to the hot spring recreation areas (40.6%), followed by tourists there for four or more times (24.1%) Additionally, most tourists were staying for two days (51.7%), followed by one day (39.2%) Travelling expenses were mostly in the range of 1000 to 2000 NT$ per person (27.4%), followed by less than 1000 NT$ (24.5%) Most tourists had their family as travel companions (61.5%), followed by their friends (34.2%) Most tourists used cars for hot spring travel (74.0%), followed by bus (15.1%) Furthermore, approximately Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 51.7% of tourists did not buy souvenirs, while 48.3% of tourists did purchase souvenirs from hot spring recreation areas Approximately 23.3% of tourists were only travelling to hot spring recreation areas, followed by tourists who also visited leisure farms (20.2%) Tourists’ perceptions of the importance of their hot spring experiences The frequencies of respondents’ importance levels for hot spring recreation areas are shown Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 198 T.-H Lee Table Travel characteristics of respondents Variables N (valid) Percentage (%) Motivation (multiple responses) Attracted by destination’s reputation Incentive tour Beautiful landscape Hot spring quality Special and delicious food Holiday only 307 100 244 205 67 587 20.3 6.6 16.2 13.6 4.4 38.9 Visited this hot spring recreation area First time Twice Three times мFour times 373 214 110 221 40.6 23.3 12.0 24.1 Time spent One day Two days Three days 362 477 84 39.2 51.7 9.1 Travel expense (per person) Ϲ1000 NT$ 1001 to 2000 NT$ 2001 to 3000 NT$ 3001 to 4000 NT$ 4001 to 5000 NT$ м5001 NT$ 226 253 149 84 92 119 24.5 27.4 16.1 9.1 10.0 12.9 Travel companions Travel alone Family Friends 39 566 315 4.2 61.5 34.2 Traffic By bus By car By motorcycle 140 684 100 15.1 74.0 10.8 Souvenirs purchased Yes No 443 474 48.3 51.7 Also visited other sightsee None 301 23.3 Spots (multiple responses) National forest recreation area Indigenous tribal area National park Leisure farm Museum 259 156 149 263 168 20.0 12.0 11.5 20.2 13.0 Note: 1US$ = 32.87 NT$ (data by 16 July 2007) in Table The most important attribute was hotel service quality, showing 78.2% finding it important, 3.5% finding it unimportant, and 18.3% having no opinion This frequency indicated that most of the respondents regarded hotel service quality as an important part of the hot spring recreation area experience This was followed by the springs’ hygiene and quality, with 77.9% indicating that it is important, 1.8% finding it unimportant and Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 20.3% having no opinion The third most important attribute was parking convenience, with 77.7% indicating it as important, 4.0% finding it unimportant and 18.3% with no opinion The supply of souvenirs had the lowest level of importance, with 45.7% indicating that it is important, 11.5% that it is unimportant and 42.9% with no opinion In general, except for the supply of souvenirs, half of the respondents considered all of the items in Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Visitors’ Hot Spring Experiences in Taiwan 199 Table Tourists’ levels of importance with hot spring recreation areas in Taiwan (% of respondents) Level of importance Attributes 10 Springs’ hygiene and quality Natural landscapes History and culture Feeling of springs bath Spring bath style Interpretative signboard Hotel comfort Hotel service quality Equipment for warning signals Medicine and emergency information system 11 Traffic convenience 12 Parking convenience 13 Supply of souvenirs Very unimportant Unimportant No opinion Important Very important 0.1 0.0 0.9 0.2 0.2 1.0 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.3 1.7 2.9 9.5 4.6 4.1 9.5 2.2 3.4 4.2 6.0 20.3 31.1 35.4 24.4 28.5 35.0 20.8 18.3 21.0 21.8 42.7 44.9 39.3 44.3 44.0 39.2 39.2 43.9 40.0 39.7 35.2 21.0 14.9 26.6 23.2 15.3 37.1 34.3 34.5 32.3 0.6 1.2 1.2 2.6 2.8 10.3 24.1 18.3 42.9 42.9 41.7 32.7 29.8 36.0 13.0 Table Tourists’ levels of satisfaction with hot spring recreation areas in Taiwan (% of respondents) Level of satisfaction Attributes 10 11 12 13 14 Springs’ hygiene and quality Natural landscapes History and culture Feeling of spring bath Spring bath style Interpretative signboard Hotel comfort Hotel service quality Equipment for warning signals Medicine and emergency information system Traffic convenience Parking convenience Supply of souvenirs Overall satisfaction Strongly dissatisfied Dissatisfied No opinion Satisfied Strongly satisfied 0.4 0.4 1.4 1.7 1.1 2.4 1.7 0.9 1.8 1.8 2.9 5.2 10.6 11.6 5.5 15.5 8.5 7.8 12.8 17.1 38.8 48.1 51.5 42.0 44.4 46.9 44.5 41.6 43.3 49.5 47.6 37.7 30.6 36.8 41.8 29.6 36.8 39.2 35.6 26.0 10.2 8.6 6.0 7.9 7.2 5.6 8.5 10.5 6.5 5.5 2.0 6.2 1.9 0.9 11.4 17.6 10.1 2.3 40.2 33.2 55.6 34.8 37.9 32.2 26.4 50.8 8.6 10.8 6.0 11.3 the hot spring recreational experience to be significant Tourists’ perceptions of satisfaction of their hot spring experiences Frequencies on respondents’ multi-item satisfaction and overall satisfaction levels are shown in Table Regarding item satisfaction, the highest-rated attribute was the springs’ hygiene Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and quality, showing 57.8% were satisfied, 3.3% were dissatisfied and 38.8% had no opinion These percentages indicated that more than half of the respondents were satisfied with the springs’ hygiene and quality of their hot spring recreation areas This was followed by the hotel service quality, with 49.7% indicating that they were satisfied, 8.7% were dissatisfied and 41.6% were of no opinion This distribution indicated that approximately half Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr 200 T.-H Lee the respondents were satisfied with the hotel service quality of their hot spring recreation areas The medicine and emergency information system had the lowest level of satisfaction, with 31.5% indicating that they were satisfied, 18.9% that they were dissatisfied and 49.5% had no opinion Additionally, the supply of souvenirs had the second lowest level of satisfaction, with 32.4% satisfied, 12.0% dissatisfied and 55.6% with no opinion The relatively low levels of satisfaction for these two attributes indicate that tourists were relatively dissatisfied with safety and souvenirs at the hot spring recreation areas In general, of the hot spring recreation areas, the respondents indicated more than 30.0% satisfaction with these items Regarding overall satisfaction, 62.1% of the respondents indicated that they were satisfied, only 3.2% indicated that they were dissatisfied and 34.8% were of no opinion This frequency indicates that more than 60.0% of the respondents were satisfied with the hot spring recreation areas and less than 4.0% of the respondents were dissatisfied Importance and satisfaction analysis Table shows the comparisons and relations between the related variables of importance and satisfaction using non-parameter tests Thirteen related variables of importance and satisfaction were compared using the Wilcoxon signed ranks test This finding indicates that visitors put more importance on the hot spring experience than the actual on-site experiences Moreover, the importance and satisfaction variables examined by this study show significant and positive correlations in all the experience attributes Assessment of the sustainable development Approximately 91.9% of respondents were willing to revisit the spring in question Moreover, there were significant differences in willingness to revisit according to occupation (Kruskal–Wallis Test, χ2 = 17.54, d.f = 8, p = 0.025) and areas of residence (Kruskal– Wallis Test, χ2 = 17.10, d.f = 6, p = 0.009) Other demographic variables did not display any significant difference Some 22.3% of tourists strongly agreed with pushing and developing hot spring tourism, while 50.0% agreed, 25.9% expressed no opinion, 1.4% disagreed and 0.3% strongly disagreed None of the demographic statistical variables displayed a significant difference Furthermore, 28.5% of tourists strongly agreed that hot spring recreation areas should develop ecotourism, 47.3% agreed with this statement, 22.0% expressed no opinion, 1.5% disagreed and 0.7% strongly disagreed None of the demographic statistical variables displayed a significant difference Table The comparison and relation of importance and satisfaction Attributes 10 11 12 13 Springs’ hygiene and quality Natural landscapes History and culture Feeling of spring bath Spring bath style Interpretative signboard Hotel comfort Hotel service quality Equipment for warning signals Medicine and emergency information system Traffic convenience Parking convenience Supply of souvenirs Z kendall’s tau N −14.10* −11.16* −8.58* −14.08* −10.83* −9.98* −16.78* −15.21* −17.36* −18.26* −15.05* −17.55* −6.66* 0.27* 0.30* 0.28* 0.23* 0.26* 0.22* 0.23* 0.23* 0.24* 0.21* 0.23* 0.17* 0.33* 922 920 920 920 919 922 923 922 923 922 922 924 924 * p < 0.001 Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Int J Tourism Res 12, 193–203 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr Visitors’ Hot Spring Experiences in Taiwan DISCUSSION This study surveyed tourists’ experiences of hot spring recreation areas in Taiwan during winter and summer, using stratified random sampling to supply data not provided by previous studies (Pao, 2000; Fang, 2002; Hwang et al., 2002) Most tourists visited hot spring recreation areas in winter, and the peak and off seasons differed significantly In Taiwan, most researchers have previously surveyed single hot spring recreation areas and, consequently, only surveyed tourists from limited catchment areas (Pao, 2000; Fang, 2002; Hwang et al., 2002) This study suggests that tourists came from a wide variety of locations around Taiwan More tourists, however, came from Taipei and Kaoshiung than anywhere else, simply because these two regions are the largest and second largest population centres in the country This study also found that the tourists were concentrated mostly near hot spring recreation areas Recreational experience and the satisfaction have a dynamic interaction (Mannell and Iso-Ahola, 1987; Hull et al., 1996; Borrie and Roggenbuck, 2001) The environment can affect recreational experience patterns (Hull et al., 1992) Tourists seek solitude, escape, excitement, enjoyment of the natural landscapes and health from their hot spring recreational experiences Tourists expected an excellent tourist experience in hot spring recreation areas, due to the springs’ diversity of ecological landscapes, social-cultural landscapes, bath patterns, health spas and ecotourism Recreational satisfaction is the most important indicator for recreational experiences Hence, providing diverse and high-quality experiences is the most important task of managers and marketers of hot spring recreation areas The results of the assessment of sustainable development are as follows First, the rate of repeat visits was extremely high Second, tourists strongly agreed that stimulating hot spring tourism was beneficial Third, tourists strongly agreed that hot spring recreation areas should develop ecotourism programmes Moreover, as most of the hot spring recreation areas were adjoined to other famous tourist destinations, hot spring recreation areas could combine Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 201 themselves with the neighbouring tourist destinations in order to increase tourism diversity and sustainable development Accordingly, this study suggests that hot spring recreation areas capitalise on their strengths in natural landscape and service quality and combined themselves with neighbouring attractions such as national parks, national forest recreation areas, leisure farms or aboriginal tribal areas to develop a unique, sustainable tourism programme The present study used the single Likert scale as an ordinal scale to assess the importance and satisfaction for the visitors of hot spring recreation areas Despite the findings reported here, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of applying the ImportancePerformance Analysis or Service Attribute Matrix owing to the measure scales It would be worthwhile to use the Service Attribute Matrix to develop rating scales to further examine marketing strategy Accordingly, the means were calculated for the importancesatisfaction analysis Consequently, the average importance and satisfaction ratings for the measured experience attributes can be displayed on a two-dimensional grid to assess the marketing strategy for the hot spring recreation areas Finally, this study concludes that hot spring recreation areas should utilise their natural landscapes, hot spring quality, hotel service quality and proximity to neighbouring ecotourism destinations to develop sustainable hot spring recreation areas In particular, managers could utilise the summer to provide alternative tourism, such as ecotourism, cultural travel, adventure travel and wildlife watching, both to increase their income and to better satisfy tourists ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Mrs Hsu C F., Hsiao H C., Chang W C., Liu S Y., Hsueh S C., Wen Y J., and Kuo S H., Wu C C., and Tsai J C for their assistances in conducting the questionnaire survey I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for giving helpful comments to improve the manuscript Int J Tourism Res 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