Athletes Perceptions of Service Quality of Mega Sport Event: The Case of the Incheon 2014 Asian Games

Abstract

As an indicator of customer satisfaction and success of the organization service quality is gaining tremendous attention among scholars. Although research on service quality perceptions and satisfaction can be found within sport industry context, there is limited literature on perceptions of service quality at the mega sport event from athletes perspective. Identifying the determinants of athletes satisfaction with the experience of mega sport event provide insight into the needs of athletes which subsequently might be used to enhance service quality. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to gain better understanding of the factors that determine athletes perceptions of service quality at the mega sport event. Our specific attention was focused on the effect of service quality factors, such as competition quality, augmented service quality, interaction quality, outcome quality and physical environment quality, on satisfaction and Incheon city destination image. A quantitative research design was chosen to conduct our study. By means of survey questionnaire data were collected from 213 athletes represented Uzbekistan at the Incheon 2014 Asian Games. The questionnaire consists of 60 items measures service quality perceptions, satisfaction and destination image. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses. The study provides an analysis of the factors athletes use when evaluating service quality provided at the mega sport event which might be useful for the future research. The study revealed that competition and outcome quality positively influenced athletes satisfaction with mega sport event. Likewise, physical environment quality significantly affected Incheon city image. Results suggest that there is need to enhance both tangible and intangible factors to increase level of satisfaction among athletes.