Ecotourism Service Quality at Fushan Botanical Garden

In this study, we applied modified SERVQUAL instruments to examine gaps between visitors’ expectations and perceptions of the ecotourism service quality offered at Fushan Botanical Garden, Ilan Co., northeastern Taiwan, and the relationship between overall visitor satisfaction and revisiting intentions. In total, 439 visitors were surveyed using an on-site interview method. There were significant differences between visitors’ expectations and perceptions for 22 of 35 items by paired t-test. The results showed that the overall mean of the expectations and perceptions were 4.37 and 4.39, respectively. This means that visitors’ level of satisfaction on site was better than their expectations. We also performed a factor analysis on the service quality gap scores of 22 items, and 6 factor dimensions were established: “facilities and safety”, “environmental education and information”,
“visitor services and interpretation”, “characteristics and benefits”, “visitor prohibited behaviors”, and “tourism use limitations”. These dimensions explained 59.22% of the variance of the factors on which they were loaded. Through frequency analysis, the majority of respondents stated that their level of satisfaction was very satisfied (36.0%) or satisfied (57.2%), and the majority of respondents also showed a revisit desire with 49.2% hoping very much to revisit and 46.0% hoping to revisit. Generally, Fushan Botanical Garden is very attractive to visitors due to the high-quality ecotourism services provided.