Measuring the Quality of Ecotourism Services

Ecotourism forms the pillar of the country’s tourism industry.Ecotourists make up more than 10% of international tourists in Malaysia. When servicequality is thought of as an important factor to the success of tourism serviceproviders, the importance of estimating service quality provided to tourists becomesapparent. Estimating service quality provides tourism service providers with thenecessary information needed to manage their marketing operations appropriately.Therefore, this estimation should be performed with the right measurement scales.Despite the high volume of research on service quality (SERVQUAL) models in recentyears, limited effort has been directed toward improving the tool for measuring servicequality, particularly to apply to the ecotourism sector in developing countries. Thisarticle aims to improve a SERVQUAL model that is suitable for ecotourism areas indeveloping countries using five dimensions of the original model and one additionalsustainability dimension. Based on a survey of 127 tourists in Tasik Kenyir, anexploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to discover the underlying dimension ofecotourism services and test for reliability and validity. Using EFA resulted in sevenfactors totaling 27 items. These factors are labeled as follows: tangiblesustainability, sustainable practices, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness,assurance, and empathy. The results reveal that when SERVQUAL is applied within theecotourism context, new dimensions of tangible sustainability and sustainable practicesmay emerge. The result implies the need to refine the SERVQUAL model when used indifferent contexts