Assessing the Perceived Service Quality of Rural Tourist Attractions
Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the perceived service quality of the most popular rural tourist attractions in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, in order to propose a service improvement plan.
Design/methodology: A survey was administered to a sample of 384 tourists. Its results were treated using exploratory factor analysis to propose a service improvement plan for these tourist services.
Findings: The model obtained presented reliable and valid results regarding three factors (security and reliability; physical appearance and attention; and empathy and willingness) that explain 64.2 % of the accumulated perceived service quality. It was found that, in general, at least 31.5 % of those surveyed assessed the service as very good in the three factors of the model. However, a significant percentage (68.5 %), focused on the second factor, assessed the perceived service quality as less than good.
Conclusions: Tourist attractions in Villa de Leyva have two weaknesses: lack of knowledge about the quality of their service provision and lack of control when they provide their services. Therefore, this study infers that the perceived service quality of these attractions can be modeled as a multidimensional construct with three factors: (I) security and reliability; (II) physical appearance and attention; and (III) empathy and willingness.
Originality: This study assessed the perceived service quality of tourist attractions in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. In addition, it proposes an improvement plan to enhance the quality of the services they offer vacationers.
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