Guidelines for the Service Quality Improvement Development of Coach Service to Support Foreign tourists: A Case of Phuket

Abstract

        This research aimed to: 1) assess the level of expectations and perceptions of foreign tourists toward the service quality of coach 2) compare the level of expectations and perception of foreign tourists toward the service quality of coach 3) offer guidelines for the quality development of coach service to support foreign tourists in Phuket.This research was based on quantitative research. The used samples in this research were 400 foreign tourists who were visiting in Phuket and used the coach service by convenience sampling method. The research material was a questionnaire which was studied and constructed by based on theory of service quality assessment. It consists of 5 main dimensions such as Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy and Tangibility. The analyzed statistics were  1) Frequency Distribution as Percentage, 2) Mean, 3) Standard Deviation, 4) T-test Statistics, the difference test between the means of two independent samples,  5) F-test statistics (One-Way ANOVA) the difference test between the means of samples, more than two groups by LSD and 6) Paired Sample t-test statistics for differences or gaps in service quality.

        The research results found that the perception of foreign tourists toward the service quality of coach service in Phuket was less than the expectation (P<E) in overall and each five main dimensions. When sorting scores difference in gap score between expectation and perception in each dimension, the results were descending as following; Empathy (P-E =-0.08), Responsiveness and Reliability equally (P-E=-0.06), Assurance (P-E= -0.03)  and Tangibility (P-E = -0.01) respectively.  The hypothesis test showed that foreign tourists had expectation and perception in Empathy differently at statistically significant difference of 0.05 level.The guidelines for the quality development were recommended to improve the service quality in 5 dimensions for reducing the differences of gap scores in expectation and perception toward the service quality. Moreover, the entrepreneur should establish a standard-based service by following Tourism Service Standard from Department of Tourism to achieve satisfaction and affect to the returning of foreign tourists.