Evaluation of Museum Service Quality from Tourists’ Perspective and its Impact on their Satisfaction and Behavioral Consequences, Case Study: Qajar Museum and the Constitution House of Tabriz

Along with the international development in the cultural tourism, heritage tourism has been emerged as a common form of this industry. Museums play an essential role in local development and preserving the cultural heritage of the community. In addition, it is regarded as a very effective factor in attracting cultural tourists and assisting the tourism industry growth in the mentioned country. Although the importance of service quality has been highlighted in tourism texts, to the best of our knowledge, the quality of these services based on tourists’ experiences has not been emphasized. The present study aims to study the tourist’s perspective toward the offered services in the aforementioned museums and the impact of these assessments on their satisfaction. The research is based on descriptive- experimental design and which was done by a survey methodology cross sectionally. The population included the visitors of Qajar Museum and Constitution House of Tabriz during one- month (mid-March, 2014- mid-April, 2014). The SERVPERF model was used as a research instrument as the modified form of the SERVQUAL model. Data were collected by the questionnaires which used the mentioned model to assess Qajar Museum and Constitution House of Tabriz quality of services from visitors’ viewpoints, with a small number of changes made to align questions with the aims and features of services in those museums. Finally, 14 questions in the form of a five-point Likert scale were formulated among which three were related to the level of satisfaction while others were concerned with evaluating behavioral consequences. Two factors were considered in the formulation of the questions: the respondents were the visitors of the museums and they completed the questionnaire during the time of visiting. Therefore, the number of questions should be adjusted so that visitors can respond to all during the limited time patiently. Since the present study aimed to investigate the visitor’s satisfaction and behavioral consequences, their expectations were eliminated from the original model and a suitable expectation spectrum did not put on the questionnaire. Further, attempts were made cover the widest range of conceptual variables in the fewest number of questions. Demographic information about the tourists including age, gender, employment status, education level, and the number of previous cases was asked in numerical and nominal scales from the respondents. Multiple regression was used to analyze the relationship between variables and hypotheses. Answering these questionnaires is also a voluntary participation. Finally, a total of 320 questionnaires were randomly distributed among which 309 were valid in the final result. The variables of the study included the dimensions of service quality - customer empathy, physical factors, responsiveness, security and reliability which are derived from the SERVPERF model. Two other variables were related to the satisfaction and behavioral consequences of the visitors.
The present study aimed to evaluate the quality dimensions of museum services from the perspective of tourists and its sub-objectives included the impact of these assessments on the tourist’ satisfaction and behavioral preferences. To this aim, five hypotheses were proposed. The results indicated a positive and significant effect of service quality and satisfaction on behavioral consequences. In addition, the present study aimed to review the tourist’s viewpoints toward the offered services in the museums and how it can influence the tourist’ satisfaction and behavioral consequences. Then, confirmatory factor analysis was used to specify the different dimensions of service quality and multiple regression was implemented to study measure the relationships among the variables. Regarding the first and the second hypothesis, a positive relationship was observed between service quality and satisfaction of tourists. The third hypothesis statistically indicated the relationship between service quality and satisfaction variables. As for the fourth hypothesis, a positive relationship was reported between five dimensions of service quality and the behavioral consequences. Further, along with relief and eagerness to respond, other dimensions of service quality had a significant effect on behavioral consequences. The results of the fifth hypothesis represented a positive relationship between the quality of services and satisfaction among which only empathy and reliance had a significant effect on the satisfaction. The results of the present study can be used to identify obstacles in attracting tourists to cultural and historical centers. Finally, decision-makers can implement the results to provide better services in order to attract tourists or encourage them to reuse museums