A Management Model to Operate a Commercial Tennis Club in Zhanjiang, China

Abstract

Background and Aim: After the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, tennis was rapidly developing in China. In 2021. China's tennis population has risen to the second largest in the world but it has only 800 tennis clubs out of the total 115,584 tennis clubs in the world, and in Zhanjiang City, only 17 tennis clubs are operating for commercial purposes. The result of surveying the needs assessment among the customers showed that there was a wide gap between observed perceptions and expectations in many issues in service management operations, which means that the customers were not satisfied with the club's operations. The researchers were interested in studying these issues to find customers’ needs and suggestions to improve the tennis clubs' service and management in this area by applying service quality and marketing mix strategies. The objectives: (1) to develop a management model to operate commercial tennis clubs in Zhanjiang City, China, based on service quality and marketing mix concepts (2) to confirm the model’s satisfaction, appropriateness, and practicality of the developed management model. Materials and Methods: This research was a research and development research. The data collection was 1) Interviews with the managers or representatives of the 17 clubs, 2) a survey of the 398 clubs’ customers with a dual response questionnaire, and 3) The consensus with 19 experts by Delphi. 4) a focus group discussion with 11 stakeholders. The research tools were a structured form for interviews, a dual response questionnaire, a questionnaire for consensus with a Delphi, and a form for recording the focus group discussion. The data was analyzed in descriptive, content analysis, and PNI modified by the use of SPSS. Results: The clubs should 1) set the positioning of the clubs 2) set vision, goals, and missions to be the direction of a club’s management, 3) set the division of works to share and understand the scope of duty and responsibility of each section, 4) consider the staff motivation and welfare, service quality 5) create operation manuals, and job descriptions, collecting data to improve the service quality 6) applying marketing to create strategies such as; offering a variety of products, pricing at the same rate of other clubs, set the easy and convenient operation process for customers.7) Collect the problems and needs of customers, and the readiness of management resources, to formulate the management strategies with the application of service quality and marketing mix concepts which could respond to expectations them Conclusion: The clubs should consider management functions and marketing mixes to create the strategies to operate the clubs by the responses to the needs of customers survey.