provide customer satisfaction to the existing customers of the bath house there .... The Grand Turkish Bath is built on the ruins of 14th Century Lusignan church, ...
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“The Perception of the Grand Turkish Bath Visitors and the Service Quality Provided: A Case of North Cyprus; GrandTurkish Bath” Asst.Prof.Dr. İsmet Esenyel (corresponding author) Dean of Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Tourism and Hospitality Management, Girne American University, Karaoğlanoğlu, Kyrenia Hüseyin Bozdağlar Tourism and Hospitality Management, Girne American University, Karaoğlanoğlu, Kyrenia Abstract The role of service quality in the success of running a perfect and competitive place such as Turkish Bath cannot be denied. It is vital for the managers and the personel staff to have a good understanding on what exactly the customers want and what do they expect. Identifying the specific expectations of customers, the dimensions of the service quality, and their relative importance for customers for each specific segment of the Turkish Bath would definitely help managers in the challenge of improving the service quality. The objectives of this study were to investigate the service quality expectations and opinions of Turkish Bath customers. The findings of this study confirmed the five-dimensional structure of SERVQUAL; however, some of the dimensions found and their components were different from SERVQUAL. The five service quality dimensions identified in this study were named as „„tangibles‟‟, „„adequacy in service supply‟‟, „„understanding and caring‟‟, „„assurance‟‟, and „„convenience‟‟. The findings showed that business travelers had the highest expectations for the dimension of „„convenience‟‟ followed by „„assurance‟‟, „„tangibles‟‟,adequacy in service supply‟‟, and „„understanding and caring‟‟. The research findings also confirmed that, although the SERVQUAL scale was a very useful tool as a concept, it needed to be adapted for the specific service segments and for the cultural context within which it was used. As other tourism sectors Hamam needs a significant service quality to create loyal customers. In a bid to attract more customers and provide customer satisfaction to the existing customers of the bath house there was a need to mantain proper service quality. SERVQUAL was deemed a good tool to be used in this study to measure the service quality that is offered. Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, Turkish Bath, North Cyprus, Service Quality Assurance
1.
Introduction
Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that every organization or company must take seriously in order to remain competitive in business and hence achieve reasonable growth. The other important thing in terms of quality is also the ability for these companies to know how to measure these constructs from the COPY RIGHT © 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research
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consumers‟ perspective in order to better understand their needs and hence satisfy them. If a company understands what its customers expects it is in a much better position to try and achieve this feat. The Turkish Hamam industry is no exception and here as well service quality is considered very important because it leads to higher customer satisfaction, profitability, reduced cost, customer loyalty and retention. The Grand Bath or Büyük Hamam is located in the main streets of the capital of North Cyprus, Nicosia. It stands on the place that used to be the church of St. George the Latins in the 14th century. Like many other buildings in Nicosia, the Ottomans changed this church into something more useful for them, a bath house, the Grand Bath or Büyük Hamam.
This Grand Bath like any other business needs to anticipate its customer
expectations and try by all means to meet them. This research was conducted in order to understand the Grand Bath user‟s expectations by using the SERVQUAL model to measure service quality rendered by the Grand Bath management team. The Grand bath offers many services to its various customers. Among these services are the Paşa treatment, the Sultan treatment, the Şehrazat treatment, the Hamam experience, the Hamam Shifa, and the holistic Hamam Ritual among other treatments. Since the Grand Bath offers various services it was thus necessary to conduct a research about how customers feel about these services, their views, experiences and expectations. This survey was restricted to measuring the quality of these services rendered by the Grand Bath and the SERVQUAL model was adopted for this study. However the SERVQUAL model was adopted with modifications that are relevant for a service industry like a bath house as it was deemed that some of the metrics of the standardSERVQUAL model are not relevant for measuring service quality in a bath house. The main issues being addressed by this research are service quality and customer satisfaction using the SERVQUAL model in the Grand Bath context. Of major interest in this study are the dimensions of service quality from the consumer‟s perspective through assessing their expectations and perceptions of service quality. Therefore the research seeks to answer the question of how consumers perceive service quality in the bath house. 1.1 Objective of the Study To measure the service expectations of the Turkish Bath visitors who visit the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath. To measure the perception of the actual experience of the Turkish Bath visitors who visit the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath. To compare the difference between the Turkish Bath visitors‟ expectations and the actual experience. To use the SERVQUAL scale to qualify the five service quality dimensions that customers experience at the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath. To modify the original SERVQUAL metric scale and come up with a scale that will adequately measure service quality in the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath industry. COPY RIGHT © 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research
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1.2 Aims of the Study The study aims to use customer feedback from the findings of this survey to make recommendations to the management of the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath. This study aims to solicit for opinions from the users of the Lefkosa Grand Turkish Bath about their personal experience. It is also the aim of this study to use the findings of the research to narrow down the gap between Turkish Bath user‟s expectations and the actual experience. The study also aims to make a comparison between the Lefkoşa Grand Turkish Bath with the Greek Cyprus baths.
2.
Literature Review
2.1 History of Cyprus Hamam Culture The profiferate of Islamic hamman started around 600AD after Muhammed himself enthusiastically recommended sweat baths. Muhammad believed that the heat of Hamam (Arabic:‟speader of warmth‟) enhanced fertility, and followers of the faith should multiply. Until the hamam caught Muhammed‟s fancy, Araps started the bath tradition with cold water but the conquering Arabs encountered Roman and Greek baths in Syria, men where immedietly adopted to pleasure of hot water. The Hamam gained religious significance and became an annex to the mosque and was comply with Islamic laws of hygiene and purficiation. The Turkish Bath is a Middle Eastern variant of steam bath, and could be in the same categories of wet relative of the sauna. The European culture learned hamam throw contacts with Turkey hence the European name for it is „Turkish‟ hamam.Taking a Turkish Bath involves relaxation room (warm room) which is heated by flow of hot water, bather then will move to hotter room (hot room) before splashing theseles with cold water.
2.2 Cyprus Hamam Culture Owing to the emphasis placed in cleanliness in Turkish society, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Cyprus they built lots of public baths all over the island in major important towns. Only two of them are still operating in Nicosiafrom all of these old Baths, One is the Grand Hamam located in North Nicosia and other is Omeriye hamam located in South Nicosia. There are seperate baths for men and woman, or different days or times are allocated to men and woman. After entering the hamam you leave your cloths in the cubicle, get wrapped with a towel (peshtemal), there is a large heated stone (göbek tashi) in the middle where the bather is rubbed by a bath attendant (tellak). If the heated room get very you move to cooler room in order to refresh, many of the baths are very interesting.
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2.3 Grand Turkish Bath (Büyük Hamam) The Grand Turkish Bath is built on the ruins of 14th Century Lusignan church, St George of the Latins. The Building was changed into a Bath after the Ottomans arrived in 1571. The bath became most freuquented Turkish Bath open to the public. The bath consist a changing room, warm and cool section. There is a reception at entrance area, alongside the reception there are two smaller anti-room with four recesses which leads to hot room with a stone bench at the center. The caldarium extends to two small side chambers and light is provided by the glass-covered holes on the bell-shaped cupola. The Building is two or three metres below road level. For many many years new town was build on the ruins of old ones, so ground level became higher and higher. The Büyük Hamam is one of the two remaining Turkish Baths that still function and is restored and made fit for present day sanitation standarts, while also getting a modern infrastructure system. Hopefully restoring such a important monument will represent a vital aspect of cultural life and all Cypriots. İt will promote the establishment and expansion of inter-communal cultural preservation. This work is a signature of the the Girne American University Cultural Heritage Administration which did an extensive restoration project to the Endowment Administration to bring back the historical Grand Bath to the future. In this restoration work a wide range of specialised skills were used by various Girne American University academics, among these are staff who are specialized Architects, Town Planners, İnterior Architects, Lawyers, Sociologists, Social Psychologists and Real Estate Developers. This bringing back of a cultural and historical aspect of Turkish life back to practise is one of Girne American University‟s setting of a good example in it‟s contribution to the society that the university operates in. The Project was spear headed by the Tourism faculty of the Girne American University. In a bid to lure various customers various services are offered at various prices that are affordable to the general public. The Standard price is approximately 20 Euro and there are several other different types of massges that come at various prices.
2.4 The Omeriye Hamam The Omeriye Ottoman Baths is a late 16th century stone structure located at the North of Omeriye Mosque. İt was build by Lala Mustafa Pasha as a gift to the city after the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571. The Omeriye bath has a stone structure, build from local materials. The building has North and South entrences. TheSouth entrence is reached throw a small courtyard. The bath is simular to Ottoman baths with tree areas: entrence hall, warm room and hot bath area. The hot chamber is the main part of your visit, a square room with smaller chambers leading off, each with hot and cold water. In the center of the camber there is a stone bench COPY RIGHT © 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research
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for massages. The chamber is heated under floor and the system also provides steam for the room.The standart service will take around 2 hours with and cost of 20EURO. Additional treatments are available at extra charge. Hamam is opened Daily, Mondays are couples only, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays arefor men, with remaining days for woman. 2.5 Measurement of Service Quality Parasuraman et al. (1988) defined service quality as “a global judgment or attitude relating to the overall excellence or superiority of the service” and they conceptualized a customer‟s evaluation of overall service quality by applying Oliver‟s (1980) disconfirmation model, as the gap between expectations and perception of service performance levels. Furthermore, they propose that overall service quality performance could be determined by the measurement scale SERVQUAL. This scale uses five generic dimensions, these are tangibles (the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communications materials); reliability (the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately); responsiveness (the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service); assurance (the competence of the system and its credibility in providing a courteous and secure service); and empathy (the approachability, ease of access and effort taken to understand customers‟ needs). The development of the gap model by Parasuraman et al. (1985) opened new horizons to the understanding of service quality. Moreover, the measurement of the gap between customers‟ expectation of service and perception of service received (gap 5) led to a frequently used and a highly debated service quality instrument called the SERVQUAL scale. Parasuraman et al. (1985) argued that the most important gap is between customers‟ expectations of service and their perception of the service actually delivered (gap 5). The other four gaps (1, 2, 3, and 4) are the major causes of gap 5. Thus, firms should try to close or narrow down the other four gaps first in order to manage gap 5. The original SERVQUAL scale was composed of two sections. The first section contains 22 items for customer expectations of excellent firms in the specific service industry. The second contains 22 items, which measure consumer perceptions of service performance of a company being evaluated. The results from the two sections are then compared and used to determine the level of service quality. The SERVQUAL instrument has been widely used to measure service quality in various service industries. Several researchers have sought to define and measure the concept of service quality (Carman, 1990; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988, 1991; Teas, 1994). It has also been argued that the number of dimensions and the nature of SERVQUAL construct may be industry specific. The fit of five-dimensions of SERVQUAL carried out in different service activities has always been an important question in several studies that these dimensions proposed by SERVQUAL do notreplicate.
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Many times the SERVQUAL scale has been found uni-dimensional (Angur et al., 1999; Babakus and Mangold, 1992; Babakus and Boller, 1992) and sometimes with even ten dimensions (Carman, 1990). In the case of hotel industry, it has been found to be twodimensional (Karatepe and Avci, 2002; Ekinci et al., 2003). It has also been argued that performance-only (SERVPERF) measure explains more of the variance in an overall measure of service quality than SERVQUAL instrument (Cronin and Taylor, 1994). Therefore, the present study sets out to diagnose the perceived service quality of European customers through SERVPERF scale of SERVQUAL in a new emerging market which is North Cyprus hotels.
2.6 The SERVQUAL Scale The SERVQUAL scale is a survey instrument which claims to measure the service quality in any type of service organization on five dimensions which are tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy (Parasuraman et al., 1988). The SERVQUAL scale was developed by Parasuraman et al. in 1985, and refined in 1988, 1991 and 1994. Realizing the significance of service quality for survival and success of service companies and the need for a generic instrument which would be used to measure service quality across a broad range of service categories, Parasuraman et al. (1985) began a research program to develop such a tool. The research program began with a series of indepth interviews conducted with executives from nationally recognized service firms in four selected service categories. The quantitative research phase involved customer surveys in five different service sectors: product repair and maintenance, retail banking, long-distance telephone, securities brokerage, and credit cards. In their 1988 work, the researchers describe the development of SERVQUAL instrument and the resultant structure of the instrument. After two stages of refinement, the initial instrument consisted of 97 items capturing the 10 dimensions refined and condensed to a purified instrument that consisted of 22 sets of expectation and perception measuring items and five dimensions. The resultant five dimensions and their definitions were: Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel. Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service. Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence. Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers. This instrument consisted of two sections; an expectations section containing 22 statements to ascertain the general expectations of customers concerning a service, and a perceptions
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section containing a matching set of 22 statements to measure customers‟ assessments of a specific firm within the service category (Zeithaml et al., 1990). Statements in both sections used a seven-point Likert scale ranging from „„Strongly Agree‟‟ (7) to „„Strongly Disagree‟‟ (1), with no verbal labels for the intermediate scale points (i.e., 2 through 6) to measure the intended area. In 1991, Parasuraman et al. published an article which described the recent amendments made to 1988 version of SERVQUAL scale (Parasuraman et al., 1991).
3.
Methodology
A self-administered questionnaire, an adapted/modified version of SERVQUAL, was used in this study to analyze the opinions and expectations of locals and tourists of the Turkish Bath. The research instrument design is based on five dimensions of service quality and the 30 service items which were divided into two parts as opinions and expectaions. The questionnaire divided into three parts, the first part of the questionnaire contained questions relating socio-demographic data about the respondents. In the second part, the questionnaire contained questions based on opinions regarding the Turkish Bath. İn the third part, the questionnaire contained questions based on the customers‟expectations regarding the Turkish Bath. The sample of the study consisted of tourists and locals visiting the Turkish Bath located in Lefkosa of North Cyprus. These regions are the most popular tourist destinations in North Cyprus (Nadiri, 2003), and the Turkish Baths were selected on the basis of a non-probability convenience sampling technique (Aaker et al., 1995). After permission had been gained from the manager of the Turkish Bath, 300 questionnaires were distributed to visiting customers. Of these, 290 questionnaires were returned. In all, 285 questionnaires were found to be useful, which represents a 90 percent response rate from the original sample of 300. The questionnaire was based on only service perceptions. There were 30 items in all – 22 items for measuring service perception of perceived service quality (adopted from Parasuraman et al., 1991), and one item for measuring customer satisfaction. A five-point Likert scale (Likert, 1934) was used for data collection – with “1” being “strongly disagree” and “5” being “strongly agree”. The survey instrument was applied to international customers who were of various nationalities – including English, German, Russian, Middle Eastern natioanls and other European nationals aw well as locals. The survey instrument was applied in English to all the nationalities. The Statistical “Package for he Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.0 was used to analyze data. Descriptive analysis such as means, standard deviation and frequencies are calculated. Reliability of the scale is tested, dimensionality of the scale is confirmed through an exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis produced causal results.
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This study was conducted in Kyrenia and Lefkosa area and identified five service quality dimensions guests use to assess service quality of the Turkish Bath. The findings confirmed the five dimensional structure of SERVQUAL.
4.
Findings
The results generated from the qustionnaires showed that the demographics of the respondents are shown with the following statistics: the gender distribution was 55% male and 45% female. The highest proportion of the respondents (30%) fell into the 18-28 year age group, followed by the 29-39 year age group (28%), 25% were between 40 – 50 of year age group and the last one which was 11% followed by the 51 and above of year age group. The majority of the respondents were married 55%, followed by 45% which were single or divorced. The majority of the respondents were from TRNC (Turkish Republic of North Cyprus) 54%. Followed by 40% of the respondents were from Turkey and other nationalities. Descriptive statistical methods were used to research guests‟expectations and opinions. The means, standard deviations and the difference scores were computed for each attribute. About 25% of the responders verified that they derived more value for Money from the Grand Hamam and that the prices are cheaper than the Omeriye Hamam. Due tothe fact that the Grand Hamam is due most customers also verified that the service quality, customer satisfaction and hospitality is beter on the Grand Hamam side. There was also a confirmation that the Grand Hamam offers more services and has a greater variety and generally more services to offer than its counterpart. This study was conducted in a setting where the questionnaires were distributed to visitors as tourists as well as locals and identified five service quality dimensions visitors use to assess service quality of the Turkish Bath. The findings confirmed the five-dimensional structure of SERVQUAL, but some of the dimensions found and the components of these dimensions differed from that of SERVQUAL. These findings support the claim that, the number of service quality dimensions is dependent on the particular service being offered and different measures should be developed for different service contexts (Babakus and Boller, 1992; Carman, 1990).
4.1 Limitations and Avenues for Future Research This research has certain limitations, and interpretation of its findings therefore needsto be undertaken with caution.First North Cyprus citizens as a culture and tradition are not aware of Turkish Bath especially the new generations. As a result; it needs at least two years in order to get more deeper analytic approach as it was closed for more than 20 years after Girne American University cultural heritrage and preservation department took it over.
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Second, measurement of customer satisfaction was carried out using a single-itemscale, and it was therefore not possible to estimate its reliability. Therefore, a study offurther applications of the SERVQUAL scale in different samples with more itemsmeasuring customer satisfaction would better establish its external validity. Finally, many of the issues in service quality literature remain to be explored – forexample, how marketing strategies can be designed to manage perceived servicequality and how the Turkish Bath industry can use the service quality concept to formulatemarketing strategies effectively.
5.
Conclusion
This study also provides hotel service quality researchers with useful guidelines forfuture research that would result in more rigorous theoretical and methodologicalprocesses. The terms “satisfaction” and “quality” have been a central hospitalitymanagement philosophy, and their importance continues with the promise of arenewed, foreseeable prosperity for the hotels as long with the Turkish Baths of the future. Nevertheless, hospitalityresearch has not, on the whole, developed any substantive theories and innovations.Partial responsibility for this necessity lies in the method driven research traditions ofthe past. Therefore, using SERVQUAL scale, one of the apparent implications of thisstudy turns out to be that managers should improve their service level and shouldredesign the structure of their available physical facilities. Also, the use of SERVQUALscale to measure the service quality provides diagnostic capability about the level ofservice performance from the customers‟ perspective. Thus, the use of SERVQUALinstrument provides useful information to managers for developing qualityimprovement strategies. This study also supports the argument in the literature thatperformance-only (SERVQUAL) is the better predictor of service quality (Cronin andTaylor, 1992; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Boulding et al., 1993). In general, this studyalso recommends that SERVQUAL measurement is sufficient. The general results of the study showed that the modified version of the SERVQUAL tool was relevant for this study. The Standard version of the SERVQUAL was refined to include other metrice like assurance, understanding and caring which were deemed relevant for a service industry like the Grand bath. The results shows that business travelers had the highest expectations for the dimension of „„convenience‟‟ followed by „„assurance‟‟, „„tangibles‟‟, adequacy in service supply‟‟, and „„understanding and caring‟‟. The research findings also confirmed that, although the SERVQUAL scale was a very useful tool as a concept, it needed to be adapted for the specific service segments and for the cultural context within which it was used.
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