How Delightful is Indian Wellness Tourism? A Netnographic Study

Yıl 2021, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 1, 132 - 156, 01.06.2021

Dibya Mishra Rajeev Panda

https://doi.org/10.30519/ahtr.784232

Cited By: 5

Öz

The growing number of wellness care facilities in India has raised concern over the service quality that is being provided to the tourists. This research targets to explore the dimensions of wellness tourism service quality based on customers’ quality perception. Social media platforms such as Google reviews and hotel review blogs/websites were used to gather 400 public reviews. A Naïve Bayes machine learning Sentiment Analysis approach was used to identify critical areas to improve service delivery, customer relationship, and hospitality management in wellness resorts. Tangibility was identified as the most important dimension followed by empathy, assurance, reliability, and responsiveness. Assurance, empathy, and reliability have the most negative sentiments shared by tourists. Food quality, rooms and accommodation facilities, safety and security, attitude towards customer complaints, the behaviour of the staff, error-free services, and proper training are areas upon which Indian wellness resorts should focus. This study intends to identify additional constructs in future research and build robust models to actively rank the important factors for better customer engagement. Research findings may support managers and policymakers to identify areas of improvement to help them develop the wellness resorts in India.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Wellness tourism, wellness resorts, service quality, sentiment analysis, machine learning, customer experience

Kaynakça

• Alaei, A. R., Becken, S., & Stantic, B. (2019). Sentiment analysis in tourism: Capitalizing on big data. Journal of Travel Research, 58(2), 175-191.
• Ali-Knight, J. (2009). Yoga tourism. In R. Bushell & P. J. Sheldon (Eds.), Wellness and Tourism: Mind, Body, Spirit, Place (pp. 84-95). New York, NY: Cognizant Communication Corporation.
• Arasli, H., Mehtap‐Smadi, S., & Katircioglu, S. T. (2005). Customer service quality in the Greek Cypriot banking industry. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 15(1), 41-56.
• Arnold, S. (2011). From sentiment to applications. KM World, 20(7), 1-20.
• Bhat, M. A. (2012). Tourism service quality: A dimension-specific assessment of SERVQUAL. Global Business Review, 13(2), 327-337.
• Bhowmick, T. (2018). An overview of Medical and Wellness Tourism in India. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 2, 68-72.
• Blackshaw, T. (2005). Zygmunt Bauman. Abington: Routledge.
• Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 56-62.
• Choi, T. Y., & Chu, R. (2001). Determinants of hotel guests’ satisfaction and repeat patronage in the Hong Kong hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 20(3), 277-297.
• Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and psychological measurement, 20(1), 37-46.
• Constantinides, E., & Fountain, S. (2008). Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 9(3), 231-244.
• Cronin Jr, J. J., & Taylor, S. A. (1992). Measuring service quality: a reexamination and extension. Journal of marketing, 56(3), 55-68.
• Csirmaz, É., & Pető, K. (2015). International trends in recreational and wellness tourism. Procedia economics and finance, 32, 755-762.
• Deshpande, M., & Sarkar, A. (2010). BI and sentiment analysis. Business Intelligence Journal, 15(2), 41-50.
• Douglas, N. (2001). Travelling for health: Spa and health resorts. In N. Douglas & R. Derrett (Eds.), Special Interest Tourism: Context and Cases (pp. 260-282). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Geho, P., Smith, S., & Lewis, S. (2010). Is Twitter a viable commercial use platform for small businesses? An empirical study targeting two audiences in the small business community. The Entrepreneurial Executive, 15(1), 73-85.
• Global Wellness Institute (2017). Global wellness economy monitor. Retrieved 19 December, 2019, from https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/GWI_WellnessEconomyMonitor2017_FINALweb.pdf
• Global Wellness Institute (2018). Global wellness economy monitor. Retrieved 19 December, 2019, from https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Research2018_v5FINALExecutiveSummary_webREVISED.pdf
• Global Wellness Institute (2019). Global wellness economy bubble chart. Retrieved 19 December, 2019, from https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Global-Wellness-Economy-Bubble-Chart-2019.pdf
• Godolja, M., & Spaho, A. (2014). Customer satisfaction measurement practices in hotels: Some evidence from Albania. In 10th International Conference of ASECU, Cluj Napoca, Romania. Retrieved 04 July, 2019, from http://www. asecu. gr/files/10th_conf_files/godolja-spaho.pdf
• Gretzel, U., & Yoo, K. H. (2008). Use and impact of online travel reviews. In P. O’Connor, W. Höpken, & U. Gretzel (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism. New York, NY: Springer.
• Hall, C. M. (1992). Adventure, sport and health tourism. In B. Weiler & C. M. Hall (Eds.), Special Interest Tourism (pp. 141-158). London: Belhaven Press.
• Hall, C. M., Voigt, C., Brown, G., & Howat, G. (2011). Wellness tourists: In search of transformation. Tourism Review, 66(1-2), 16-30.
• Hutchinson, J., Lai, F., & Wang, Y. (2009). Understanding the relationships of quality, value, equity, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions among golf travelers. Tourism Management, 30(2), 298-308.
• Jones, J. L., & Shandiz, M. (2015). Service quality expectations: Exploring the importance of SERVQUAL dimensions from different nonprofit constituent groups. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 27(1), 48-69.
• Joshi, R. (2016). Accuracy, Precision, Recall & F1 Score: Interpretation of Performance Measures. Retrieved 17 July, 2019, from https://blog.exsilio.com/all/accuracy-precision-recall-f1-score-interpretation-of-performance-measures/
• Juwaheer, T. D. (2004). Exploring international tourists' perceptions of hotel operations by using a modified SERVQUAL approach - a case study of Mauritius. Managing Service Quality, 14(5), 350 – 364
• Karai, V. K. (2019). What will 2019 bring for wellness tourism in India: An outlook. Entrepreneur. Retrieved 19 September, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325229
• Kho, N. D. (2010). Customer experience and sentiment analysis. KM World, 19(2), 10-20.
• Koppel, M., & Schler, J. (2006). The importance of neutral examples for learning sentiment. Computational Intelligence, 22(2), 100-109.
• Ku, L., Huang, T., & Chen, H. (2009). Using morphological and syntactic structures for Chinese opinion analysis. In Proceedings of EMNLP 2009, pp. 1260–1269.
• Kulczycki, C., & Luck, M. (2009). Outdoor adventure tourism, wellness, and place attachment. In R. Bushell & P.J. Sheldon (Eds.), Wellness and Tourism: Mind, Body, Spirit, Place (pp. 165-76). New York, NY: Cognizant Communication Corporation.
• Lean, G. L. (2009). Transformative travel: Inspiring sustainability. In R. Bushell & P.J. Sheldon (Eds.), Wellness and tourism: Mind, body, spirit, place (191-205). New York, NY: Cognizant Communication Corporation.
• Lewis, R. C., & Nightingale, M. (1991). Targeting service to your consumer. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 32(2), 18-27.
• Markovic, S., Raspor, S., & Komšic, J. (2012). Service quality measurement in Croatian wellness tourism: An application of the SERVQUAL scale. Academica Turistica-Tourism and Innovation Journal, 5(1), 47-58.
• Marshall, A. (1993). Safety top guest’s priority list: Sell security as No.1 amenity. Hotel and Motel Management, 208(11), 21.
• Meneses, R. W., & Larkin, M. (2012). Edith Stein and the contemporary psychological study of empathy. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 43(2), 151-184.
• Ministry of Tourism, Government of India (2020). India Tourism Statistics at a Glance – 2020. Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. Retrieved 15 January, 2021 from https://tourism.gov.in/sites/default/files/2020-09/ITS%20at%20a%20glance_Book%20%282%29.pdf.
• Ministry of Tourism, Government of India (2019). India Tourism 2019. Ministry of Tourism Government of India. Retrieved 15 January, 2021 from https://tourism.gov.in/sites/default/files/2020-04/India%20Tourism%20Statistics%202019.pdf.
• Misopoulos, F., Mitic, M., Kapoulas, A., & Karapiperis, C. (2014). Uncovering customer service experiences with Twitter: The case of airline industry. Management Decision, 52(4), 705-723.
• Muturi, D., Sagwe, J., & Namukasa, J. (2013). The influence of airline service quality on passenger satisfaction and loyalty. The TQM journal, 25(5), 520-532.
• Neto, F. (2003, August). A new approach to sustainable tourism development: Moving beyond environmental protection. In Natural resources forum, 27(3), 212-222. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
• Oberoi, U., & Hales, C. (1990). Assessing the quality of the conference hotel service product: Towards an empirically based model. Service Industries Journal, 10(4), 700-721.
• O’Leary, D. (2011). The use of social media in the supply chain: Survey and extensions. Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, 18(2/3), 121-144.
• Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L., & Zeithaml, V.A. (1991). Refinement and reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Journal of retailing, 67(4), 420-450.
• Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V., & Berry, L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41-50.
• Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., & Berry, L.L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of retailing, 64(1), 12-40.
• Peng, F., & Schuurmans, D. (2003). Combining Naive Bayes and n-Gram Language Models for text classification. In F. Sebastiani (Ed.), Advances in Information Retrieval, (pp. 335-350). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36618-0_24
• Philander, K., & Zhong, Y. (2016). Twitter sentiment analysis: Capturing sentiment from integrated resort tweets. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 55(1), 16-24.
• Pollock, A., & Williams, P. (2000). Health tourism trends: Closing the gap between health care and tourism. In W.C. Gartner & D.W. Lime (Eds.), Trends in Outdoor Recreation, Leisure and Tourism (pp. 165-173). Wallingford: Cabi Publishing
• Rai, M. (2018). The best wellness retreats in India. Retrieved 24 December, 2018, from https://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/the-best-wellness-retreats-in-india/
• Rambocas, M., & Pacheco, B. G. (2018). Online sentiment analysis in marketing research: A review. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 12(2), 146-163.
• Ramsaran-Fowdar, R. R. (2007). Developing a service quality questionnaire for the hotel industry in Mauritius. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 13(1), 19-27.
• Richard, E. M., Bupp, C. P., & Alzaidalsharief, R. G. (2016). Supervisor empathy moderates the negative effects of customer injustice. Emotions and Organizational Governance, 12, 117-140.
• Roth, M. S. (1995). The effects of culture and socioeconomics on the performance of global brand image strategies. Journal of Marketing Research, 32(2), 163-175.
• Santos, J. (2003). E-service quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 13(3), 233-246.
• Shahin, A., & Chan, J.F.L. (2006). Customer requirements segmentation (CRS): A prerequisite technique for quality function deployment (QFD). Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 17(5), 567-587.
• Sharma, C. (2014). A service quality model applied on indian hotel industry to measure the level of customer satisfaction. International Journal of Scientific Research, 3(3), 480-485.
• Singh, B. J., & Khanduja, D. (2010). SMED: for quick changeovers in foundry SMEs. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 59(1), 98-116.
• Smith, M., & Kelly, C. (2006). Holistic tourism: Journeys of the self?. Tourism Recreation Research, 31(1), 15-24.
• Smith, M., & Puczko´, L. (2008). Health and wellness tourism. Routledge.
• Sointu, E. (2006). The search for wellbeing in alternative and complementary health practices. Sociology of Health & Illness, 28(3), 330-49.
• Thelwall, M., Buckely, E., & Paltoglou, G. (2011). Sentiment in Twitter events. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(2), 406-418.
• Voss, C. A., Roth, A. V., Rosenzweig, E. D., Blackmon, K., & Chase, R. B. (2004). A tale of two countries’ conservatism, service quality, and feedback on customer satisfaction. Journal of Service Research, 6(3), 212-230.
• Wei, C. P., Chen, Y. M., Yang, C. S., & Yang, C. (2008). Understanding what concerns consumers: A semantic approach to product feature extraction from consumer reviews. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 8, 149-167.
• Weiermair, K., & Steinhauser, C. (2003). New tourism clusters in the field of sports and health: The case of Alpine Wellness. In the preoceedings of 12th International Tourism and Leisure Symposium (15-18), Barcelona.
• Wieseke, J., Geigenmüller, A., & Kraus, F. (2012). On the role of empathy in customer-employee interactions. Journal of Service Research, 15(3), 316-331.
• Xiang, Z., Tussyadiah, I., & Buhalis, D. (2015). Smart destinations: Foundations, analytics, and applications. Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, 4(3), 143-144.
• Yang, Y., Mao, Z., & Tang, J. (2018). Understanding guest satisfaction with urban hotel location. Journal of Travel Research, 57(2), 243-259.
• Ye, Q., Zhang, Z., & Law, R. (2009). Sentiment classification of online reviews to travel destinations by supervised machine learning approaches. Expert systems with applications, 36(3), 6527-6535.
• Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1996). The behavioral consequences of service quality. Journal of marketing, 60(2), 31-46.
• Zeithaml, V. A., Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. L., & Berry, L. L. (1990). Delivering quality service: Balancing customer perceptions and expectations. New York: Simon and Schuster.