Assessing the behavioural intentions of spa customers: an empirical analysis

Abstract

The spa industry has become a major player in the hospitality and leisure sector in Thailand. Despite the economic turndown, the spa industry has continued to grow at a robust pace. Specifically, the day spa industry is developing services to support urban and city living lifestyles. Currently, day spas are in a very competitive marketing environment in Thailand. Hence, in this environment, generating and maintaining behavioural intentions is an important strategy for retaining a competitive advantage. The main aim of this study is to gain an understanding of the dimensionality and determinants of behavioural intentions. Further, this study adopted a comprehensive hierarchical modelling approach as a framework for identifying the primary dimensions and sub-dimensions of service quality and to examine the interrelationships between the five higher-order marketing constructs (service quality, customer satisfaction, perceived value, perceived switching costs, and behavioural intentions) and their determinants in the day spa context. This study presents a comprehensive hierarchical modelling approach as a framework to identify the primary dimensions and sub-dimensions of service quality, to analyse the interrelationships between the five higher-order marketing constructs, and then to analysis the differences in the five higher-order constructs and dimensions of service quality, within the demographic factors. This study uses mix method research to analyse the data. The findings of this study were based on the analysis of a sample of 620 spa customers who had experienced a day spa in Chiang Mai, or Khon Kaen provinces or Bangkok City, Thailand, during June to August, 2013. Three focus group interviews and a pre-test preceded the data collection process. This study mainly used a self-administered survey. In addition, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modelling, and ANOVA were used to analyse the data. The findings support a comprehensive hierarchical structure of service quality for day spas that comprises nine first-order sub-dimensions(communication skills, friendliness, atmosphere, tangibles, timeliness, operation, programme variety, outcome, and staff expertise), four second-order primary dimensions (interpersonal quality, environment quality, administrative quality, and technical quality), and overall service quality. The sub-dimensions and primary dimensions vary in terms of their importance. Nevertheless, administrative quality is the most important primary dimension for overall service quality performance. Moreover, the findings also reveal that customer satisfaction is the key determinant of behavioural intentions. Service quality and perceived value are two important descriptors of customer satisfaction. Service quality is the most important determinant of customer satisfaction, which is the most significant antecedent of behavioural intentions. Service quality also is a significant determinant of perceived value and perceived switching costs. Customer satisfaction plays a partial mediating role on the relationship between service quality and behavioural intentions, and perceived value and behavioural intentions. Lastly, customer perceptions of the constructs were mostly influenced by the “age” group and “type of customer” group. This study will enable day spa managers to develop and implement a marketing strategy in order to achieve a high quality of service, upgrade the level of customer satisfaction and perceived value, increase perceived switching costs, and create favourable future behavioural intentions.