A Study of Service Quality and Satisfaction for …

1 The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol. 4, Num. 1, June 2008 159 A Study of Service Quality and Satisfaction for Museums - Taking the National Museum of Prehistory as an Example Shi, Hui-Ying, Postgraduate student of Business Management Department, Asia University Taiwan Chen, Chao-Chien, Department of Physical Education, Asia University Taiwan ABSTRACT The National Museum of Prehistory (hereinafter referred to as the Museum of Prehistory) is the first museum in Taiwan to focus on prehistoric and native cultures. It comprises several museums, archaeological sites, and ecological parks. It is also the first national museum to be built on the east coast of Taiwan. Statistics from the Taitung Tourism Administration for various tourism sites in the Taitung prefecture indicate that the total number of tourists arriving in this area per year has not reached 300,000, with a momentum of decrease on the yearly basis.

2 This Study is designed to understand the Service Quality and tourist Satisfaction of the Museum of Prehistory through the visitors experiences. This Study analyzes the Service Quality of the Museum of Prehistory using the PZB model proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988). We have gathered information by means of questionnaire research and sampling of tourists visiting the museum, and from this process we obtained 439 effective questionnaires. The analytical methods used include descriptive statistics, t test of paired samples, analysis of Pearson related factors, credibility analysis, and the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). The research data indicate the following results: (1)The male and female tourists are equal in numbers and their ages ranged from 21 to 51, most of them are married and with a university (college) education.

3 Most of them live in the northern region. Among the tourists from the three prefectures in the east, many are from Taitung. Furthermore, most of the tourists have arrived in their own cars. (2)The questionnaire originally had 31 questions related to the museum s Service Quality but was reduced to 25 items after a factor analysis. The questionnaire was divided into six sections to include educational entertainment, responsiveness and assurance, reliability, tangibility, convenience, and care. We found that after their visit, the tourists are most satisfied with the first three items in survey form which are the overall environmental cleanliness, ticketing process, and air conditioning. (3) The six sections are directly correlated with most of the overall Satisfaction of the Museum of Prehistory.

4 (4)The Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) has been used to analyze the expectations of the tourists prior to the trip and their actual experience. This took up four items in the questionnaire, ,, such as professional knowledge of tour guides, explanation methods of the tour guides, Service desk set-up, and opening time. These items are related to probable areas of improvement for the museum. Keywords: prehistory museum, Service Quality , Satisfaction INTRODUTION The 21st Century has been named the century for museums (Zhang Yu Teng 2003). The American Association of Museums (AAM) estimates that the number of museum visitors has reached approximately 500 million people per year. With the many changes in our society, the functions of the museums have been expanded from the traditional book reservation, storage, Study , and exhibition to the The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol.

5 4, Num. 1, June 2008 160 current functions of education, resort, and sightseeing. Learning and resort are the major reasons for tourists to visit museums (Combs, 1999). In 1980, the Taiwan Railway Administration started building the East Railway Beinan Station in Beinan Township, Taitung. While digging, the construction workers uncovered some slate coffins and historical relics inside them, which have attracted great attention. The surveys by archaeologists confirmed that this site was the ruins of ancient Beinan as had been previously discovered by the Japanese scholars. For the purpose of protecting the Beinan remains, Professor Song Wen Xun from the anthropology department of the National Taiwan University proposed to establish the national museum for preserving the historical relics of Beinan.

6 The preparatory office for the National Museum of Prehistory was set up on Feb. 1, 1990, to prepare for the construction of this museum. It started its test operation on July 1, 2001 and the museum officially opened on August 17 in 2002. The National Museum of Prehistory (or Museum of Prehistory) is the first museum in China specializing on the prehistoric and native cultures, and is also the first museum to comprise several museums, archaeological sites, and ecological parks. It is also the first national museum on the east coast of Taiwan. Zhang Yu Teng (2003) pointed out that, The number of visitors is not the only criterion to assess the successful operation of a museum because the museum cannot continually keep the visitors by working hard to attract them while the Quality of Service has been ignored.

7 Therefore, the trend of resort life requires the management of museums to reform in the direction of meeting the needs of the tourists (Lin Yi An, 2002). This Study intends to understand, through the visits of tourists, if the Quality of the services provided by the Museum of Prehistory meets the needs of its visitors in order to attract more tourists and ensure continuous operation.. The functions of the museum are to collect, store, and Study the historical relics, as well as provide education to the visitors. The motives of the visitors originate from their individual needs, expectations, and experiences. The tourists who visit the museum are customers of the museum. Kolter points out that a museum should learn to create customer Satisfaction with the profitable business, whether it earns profit or not (Zhang Yu Teng, 2002).

8 Thus, this Study is designed to discuss the Satisfaction of the tourists. In an era of customer orientation, the body of a museum has been changed from the previous material to people . The subject of business operation based on customer Satisfaction has become more important for museums. This Study intends to investigate and analyze the tourist Satisfaction of the Museum of Prehistory, which will be used by the relevant administrative departments as references for improving their business operation in the future. LITERATURE REVIEW Terminologies (1) Site of research: the site of research will be the Museum of Prehistory in Taitung. (2) Object of research: this will mainly be the tourists who visit the Museum of Prehistory and the Study will be performed through sampling and questionnaire.

9 (3) Importance-Performance Analysis: it is a method to measure the importance of pre-trip expectations and the Satisfaction of actual experiences. It takes the mean value as the separation and divides the space into four quadrants (see Diagram 1). Each quadrant will represent a different meaning and different strategy that should be taken. (4) SWOT: it mainly conducts analysis based on the advantages, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the Museum of Prehistory in order to understand its weaknesses and potential crisis. It also intends to strengthen the competitiveness of the museum through improvement and corrections. The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol. 4, Num. 1, June 2008 161 Importance Diagram 1.

10 The Meanings of the Various IPA and SWOT Points The Service Quality conceptual model The three professors, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, proposed a Service Quality conceptual model in 1985 that is named, This model explains the reasons why the Service Quality of a business cannot satisfy the needs of the customers and believes that any form of Service industry needs to get through five gaps if they want to correctly satisfy the needs of their customers. Four of the five gaps are related with the business and only one gap is decided by the expectations and understanding of the customers. Therefore, the size of the gap will be the function of the former four gaps (Lin Deng Can, 2003). 2. The elements of Service Quality The merit of the model lies in its effective setting of the gap elements, which not only measures the difference between the understanding of Service by the Service recipients and their expectations, but also for the business owner to measure the differences in Service Quality .