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Abstract

Abstract:An International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association's report (2013) recently referred to Cyprus as an emerging market in the fitness industry. Although Cypriot fitness agencies appear to be a growing business that both demands the acquisition of new members and, most importantly, the upkeep of the existing ones, not such research seems to have ever taken place in the country. This study's aim was to examine the patterns of service quality and satisfaction that may be used as safe predictors of members' psychological commitment to fitness industry, as psychological commitment has been suggested as one of the attitudinal components of loyalty. Four hundred and twenty questionnaires were distributed and 315 were completed and able to be used. Service quality was measured using the Brady and Cronin's (2001) scale, adjusted by Alexandris, Zahariadis, Tsorbatzoudis and Grouios (2004) in a Greek population of fitness centers' participants. Satisfaction was measured using a six-item scale proposed by Oliver (1997) while for Psychological commitment the three out of the four items forming the scale created by Scanlan, Simons, Carpenter, Schmidt and Keeler's (1993) was used. Alpha coefficients for all scales indicated their reliability. Linear Regression analysis through the stepwise method was performed in order to study whether: i) Service quality may predict satisfaction, ii) Satisfaction may predict psychological commitment and iii) Service quality may directly predict psychological commitment. The dimension "Employees" derived to be the key for the achievement of satisfaction and psychological commitment of Cyprian fitness centres members. Staff's recruitment and training strategies appear to be of great importance in order to succeed customer retention.

Job Satisfaction of Fitness Professionals in Portugal: A Comparative Study of Gender, Age, Professional Experience, Professional Title, and Educational Qualifications

“…In 2019, nearly 12,000 collaborators were working as fitness professionals in Portugal (AGAP, 2020). Fitness professionals' importance for the satisfaction and retention of clients has been reported in several studies to be essential for the growth of the sector (Papadimitriou and Karteroliotis, 2000;Murray and Howat, 2002;Makover, 2003;Theodorakis et al, 2004;Tsitskari et al, 2014;Campos et al, 2016).…”

XIII Congreso Iberoamericano de Economía del Deporte. Los eventos deportivos: impacto, turismo y tecnología

“…Dada a importância da qualidade do serviço na satisfação do cliente, a literatura procura examinar a importância de diferentes determinantes desta qualidade. No contexto dos ginásios os investigadores destacam como determinantes os aspetos do envolvimento físico, como a qualidade do equipamento (Ferreira ou o ambiente acolhedor das instalações e das aulas (Tsitskari et al, 2014), as relações interpessoais do cliente-funcionário (Loureiro et al, 2019) e a tecnologia (Ferreira Barbosa et al, 2021).…”

A roadmap for the application of PLS-SEM and IPMA for effective service quality improvements

“…Several studies have established a positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in sports and fitness settings (Alexandris et al, 2004;Dias et al, 2019;Nuviala et al, 2012;Tsitskari et al, 2014;Yu et al, 2014). Physical infrastructure has the most significant impact on satisfaction in Lentell's (2000) study, while Papadimitriou and Karteroliotis (2000) showed that the quality of instructors has the most significant contribution, followed by the facility attraction and operation, the availability of the programmes and the way it was delivered.…”