Importance-performance Analysis Grid Research Articles

Classifying Customer Attributes with Importance Performance Analysis and Fuzzy Kano

Analyzing what consumer needs remains every day’s challenge for every business. Every business entity requires continuous effort as consumers become more demanding and have more access to product/service offerings, leading to more competitive market dynamics and the necessity for more innovative ways of offering products/services. The research aims to recommend a set of customer attributes for the studied company and analyze the selected attributes using a combination of Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) and fuzzy Kano. The research is a case study of a company selling gift vouchers for individual and corporate consumers. The research combines literature study and affinity diagram workshop to identify the required consumer attributes, which are analyzed using the integration of IPA and fuzzy Kano. The results suggest that the studied company should concentrate on several attributes, such as A7-simple requirement during the purchasing process, A10-no administration fee during purchase, A14-cross promotion with various sister brands, and A15-no minimum purchase. The attributes fall under “concentrate here” in the IPA grid while at the same time, those are considered as “effective improving area” in the fuzzy Kano grid. The studied company is also recommended to keep their good work on the attribute of A5-expiry date longer than one year so that it remains their competitive attribute and does not fall into the other inferior quadrants.

Differences of Host Country-Destination Image Assessment for International Students According to Risk Perception in COVID-19 Tourism.

The study examined the comparative assessment of destination image according to the perception of COVID-19 and travel risk among international students. The online survey was administered to 786 international students enrolled in universities in Korea. Cluster analysis was performed, and three distinct clusters were identified based on risk perception. Destination image attributes were generated into four underlying dimensions: social environment, tourist environment, destination environment, and imagery, using the exploratory factor analysis. A revised Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method was utilized to assess the destination image of Korea and used to compare the expected performance of the attributes on each cluster. In addition, a revised IPA grid of each cluster was presented to unveil the satisfaction attributes of the destination image and suggest communication strategies. This study provides practical insights to destination marketers and organizations to design marketing strategies for international students. Further practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

An Importance-performance Analysis of Chinese Tourists’ Perceived Risk in Thailand

This research paper examined Chinese tourists’ perceived importance and performance risk in Thailand using an Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). The factor analysis classified 24 risk attributes into 5 dimensions of risk: Social risk, Satisfaction risk, Service/performance risk, Physical risk, and Political/financial risk. The IPA grids illustrated that the Satisfaction risk fell into the Concentrate Here quadrant; Physical and Service/performance risks in the Keep Up the Good Work quadrant; Social risk in the Low Priority quadrant; and Political/financial risk in the Possible Overkill quadrant. Implications for tourism management, tourism planners and industry were discussed.

Measuring destination competitiveness: an importance-performance analysis (IPA) of six top island destinations in South East Asia

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to measure competitiveness of six island destinations in South East Asia. Face-to-face survey interviews with 1644 international tourists from six top island destinations (Langkawi-Malaysia, Bali-Indonesia, Koh Samui-Thailand, Phuket-Thailand, Palawan-Philippines and Boracay-Philippines) were conducted. Seven dimensions namely safety & security, basic infrastructure, tourism infrastructure, nature, man-made attractions, people and hospitality; and culture and traditions were used to measure the relative competitiveness of each destination. The IPA grids indicated different competitive positions of each island, with each island exhibiting unique characteristics and strengths. Implications for both practitioners and policy makers are discussed.

Exploring competitive hotel selection attributes among guests: An importance-performance analysis

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to explore the hotel selection attributes among local guests in the competitive hotel industry in Korea and to test the role of these explored attributes in building behavioral intentions. A total of seven dimensions, which involved 17 intangible and 16 tangible attributes, were identified. The findings indicated that intangible attributes are relatively more important but offer less satisfaction, whereas tangible attributes provide a higher level of satisfaction than perceived importance. Moreover, the importance-performance analysis grid visually depicted the importance and satisfaction ratings of each attribute demonstrating its strengths and weaknesses. All intangible attributes were significantly associated with intentions.

An assessment of the Migrants’ Arirang Multicultural Festival in South Korea: A comparative study of migrant and local visitors

This study targeted visitors attending a national multicultural festival in South Korea. A total of 709 respondents were analyzed to determine how local visitors and migrant visitors differed in perceived importance and performance. Analysis identified five festival dimensions including “restroom, parking, & staff,” “programs & activities,” “accessibility & location,” “souvenirs,” and “foods & drinks,” confirming no relationship between the importance and performance dimensions. Importantly, two groups showed both differences and similarities in the importance–performance analysis grid, while they statistically differed in all importance and performance dimensions. These findings reveal how the migrant group differs from the local group with respect to perceptions in planning to attend the multicultural festival and subsequent evaluations of their experience.

On the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Technological Innovations in Urban Bus Transport: The EU Case

Logistics in urban areas are currently suffering a radical transformation due to increasing population concentration and the massive use of cars as the preferred transport mode. These issues have resulted in higher pollution levels in urban environments and traffic congestion, impacting the world globally. Facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes is widely regarded as a necessity to cope with these adverse effects on citizens’ life quality. Hence, some regions, such as the European Union, are encouraging bus transport firms to make their business models more environmentally and socially sustainable. The aim of this research is thus to explore how technological innovations adopted by urban bus companies can improve cities’ sustainability. With this in mind, a combined Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)–Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied. In this way, their environmental and social sustainability effects were separately represented through hierarchical structures. Subsequently, the importance and performance ratings of technological innovations in each sustainability dimension were estimated, and thus two IPA grids were generated. These grids support managers in the establishment of more effective action plans to improve logistics sustainability in cities. The findings also provide guidance to governments on the technological innovations that should be promoted in future urban mobility plans.

Importance-performance analysis of service quality dimensions for the Bangladeshi hotel industry

In global competitive markets, hoteliers are looking to satisfy guests for repeat customers. Achieving satisfied guests is not an easy task. This study evaluates the service quality of Bangladeshi hotels using gap analysis, SERVQUAL and importance-performance analysis (IPA). The results showed that hotel guests' satisfaction regarding service attributes are lower than the importance assigned to the measurement attributes. The widest gap was found in staff response and additional amenities, especially the commitment of hotel staff towards their guests. Also, the IPA grid showed that eight services attributes fell into the 'concentrate here' quadrant. This means that hotel management should take immediate action on these attributes for the betterment of the industry.

Importance-performance analysis of service quality dimensions for the Bangladeshi hotel industry

In global competitive markets, hoteliers are looking to satisfy guests for repeat customers. Achieving satisfied guests is not an easy task. This study evaluates the service quality of Bangladeshi hotels using gap analysis, SERVQUAL and importance-performance analysis (IPA). The results showed that hotel guests' satisfaction regarding service attributes are lower than the importance assigned to the measurement attributes. The widest gap was found in staff response and additional amenities, especially the commitment of hotel staff towards their guests. Also, the IPA grid showed that eight services attributes fell into the 'concentrate here' quadrant. This means that hotel management should take immediate action on these attributes for the betterment of the industry.

An examination of students’ perceptions for guest speakers in hospitality and tourism programs

ABSTRACTThe current study aimed to identify students’ perceptions about guest speakers in hospitality and tourism programs. A total of 222 participants were surveyed at a large, public university in southwestern United States. The mean scores of 10 attributes were plotted on an importance-performance analysis grid to illustrate each attribute of one guest speaker’s lecture. The findings showed a discrepancy between the students’ perceived importance and the performance level. The results indicate that students expect that guest speakers not only provide industry-specific knowledge and current issues but also deliver them appropriately. Therefore, guest speakers should realize that students are eager to learn about strategies for career success and current issues in order to stimulate their interest. These findings provide meaningful information for guest speakers on how to improve their effectiveness because students’ reflection and ideas about guest speakers help faculty members better utilize guest speakers and develop curriculums and programs, which ultimately will benefit students in their learning.

Sanitation management of cooks in childcare centers in South Korea according to working duration and the type of childcare center: Importance-Performance Analysis

This study was performed to obtain preliminary data for improving the quality of food service sanitary management in childcare centers by investigating the factors to be managed by priority and finding related personnel education strategies using Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) and IPA Grid analysis in South Korea. A survey using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted with the cooks at all 190 childcare centers registered in Yongin City Center for Children’s Food Service Management. Among 123 questionnaires collected, 115 were used for the final analysis. The questionnaire consisted of 15questions using a structured 5-point Likert scale, based on 4 areas of individual sanitation, food ingredient sanitation, production sanitation, and facility equipment and kitchen utensil sanitation. The priority items to be managed was determined as ‘unable to work when having symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea or wounds on hands’ by IPA Grid analysis. Sanitation management was perceived to be less important by those cooks having worked for more than 10 years as opposed to those having worked for less than 10 years (p < 0.05). Both perceived importance and performance scores in sanitary management of those working at home-type childcare centers were significantly lower than those working at national or public childcare centers (p < 0.05) in the area of food ingredient sanitary management. In conclusion, there were substantive differences in the importance and performance levels of the sanitary management of cooks depending on their working duration and the type of childcare center they were employed at. The results suggest a need to prioritize education and support programs customized for cooks working at home-type childcare centers along with those with relatively long careers.

An analysis of destination image for emerging markets of Turkey

The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to assess the perceived importance of the attributes that form the destination image (DI) based on general vacation experiences and opinions of travelers and (2) to compare the expected performance of Turkey’s attributes in attracting travelers from the emerging markets (i.e. China as well as Arab countries) using importance–performance analysis (IPA). The data were gathered from a sample of 426 prospective Chinese and Arab travelers during two prominent travel expositions in Dubai and Shanghai using face-to-face interviews with structured questionnaires. Comparative factor analysis and two generated IPA grids for each sample provided important insights into the perceived DI of emerging markets. More specifically, study findings provide valuable practical management information to destination management organizations in Turkey that want to design tailored marketing strategies for emerging markets. Further practical and theoretical implications are discussed in detail.

Improving the Service Quality of Islamic Boarding School based on Importance Performance Analysis Results

&lt;p&gt;Service quality is very importance aspect in a boarding school. In this research, an importance-performance analysis enables to evaluate the weaknesses of an Islamic boarding school according to service quality factors. This study attempts to understand stakeholders’ expectations and perceptions toward boarding school and shows the usefulness of the Importance-performance analysis grid in evaluating the service quality of school. This research identifies 35 items and each item is rated using the 5-point of Likert scale. The results are obtained from 350 respondents from students, teachers, and parents. The final results of importance-performance grid show that 12 items fall into quadrant of “Keep up the good work”, and 18 items fall into the “Concentrate here” quadrant, 3 items fall into quadrant of “Low priority”, and 2 items fall into “Possible overkill” quadrant. The findings of the research show that a school management and facilities aspect are necessary to better organizational characteristics and enhance the service quality of school. The results are useful in identifying marketing strategic and help the boarding school develop better service quality.&lt;/p&gt;

Evaluating communication competency of tour guides using a modified importance-performance analysis (MIPA)

Purpose The purpose of this research is to evaluate the communication competency of tour guides using a modified importance–performance analysis (MIPA). Tour guides are cultural ambassadors of a country; their communication skills can make or break tourists’ experiences with guided tours and memories of a destination. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 387 professional tour guides representing 38 per cent of all tour guides in Antalya, Turkey. The study further performs factor analysis using 32 communication competency items to determine underlying performance dimensions. This is followed by an MIPA to statistically identify the gap between factors that tour guides consider important and their perceptions of how they perform on these factors. Findings The study reveals that tour guides need improvement in verbal skills such as grammar, manner of speech and choice of words, as well as non-verbal behaviors such as approachability and the ability to remain friendly while maintaining a certain personal space. Research limitations/implications Due to the nature of this study and certain time limitations, the most effective method proved to be collecting data from a convenient sample of tour guides during their annual workshop. The theory of behavioral communication competency details theoretical and practical implications. Practical implications The study findings provide tour operators and the Association of Professional Tour Guides with a platform from which they can launch educational seminars and workshops to enhance tour guides’ communication competency. Originality/value The study contributes two main findings: This research provides a first-of-its-kind examination of professional tour guides’ communication competency using MIPA. The study improves the efficacy of traditional importance–performance analysis (IPA) models by enhancing them with a gap analysis through a t-test and effect size analysis including a gap analysis takes the arbitrariness out of the process of determining the location of items within the IPA grid. Tourism service providers can use these findings to offer educational seminars that can increase the skill sets of tour guides.

An Importance-Performance Analysis of Human Factors for Patient Safety Management Strategy

Abstract This study was undertaken to identify factors affecting perception of the importance and practice of patient safety management strategies among hospital employees in Taiwan. Importance-performance analysis enables management to evaluate and identify the major strengths and weaknesses of a hospital's key success factors. This work attempts to show the usefulness of an importance-performance analysis grid in evaluating hospital patient safety from employee perspectives in Taiwan. The authors identified a list of 19 items from patient safety literature reviews, and each item was rated using a 5-point Likert scale. Responses were obtained from 236 usable questionnaires. The importance-performance grid showed that nine items fell into the “Keep up the good work” quadrant, two items fell into the “Concentrate here” quadrant, six items fell into the “Low priority” quadrant, and two items fell into the “Possible overkill” quadrant. The findings suggest that the vision of the supervisor is necessary in order to better match organizational characteristics and enhance medical quality. The results are useful in identifying areas for strategic focus to help hospital managers develop patient safety strategies.

IP분석을 이용한 친환경 컨테이너터미널 운영기술에 관한 연구

본 연구는 현재 우리나라 컨테이너터미널에 적용가능한 친환경 운영기술 요인들을 도출하고, 관련 실무자들을 대상 으로 한 실증분석을 통하여 친환경 컨테이너터미널 운영기술들에 대한 항목별 중요도와 만족도의 차이를 Importance- Performance Analysis로 검증함으로써 친환경 컨테이너터미널 운영기술에 대한 향후 방안을 제시하고자 하였다. 본 연구의 결과로 친환경 컨테이너터미널 운영기술 평가항목들 중 ‘빈이동 최소화’가 가장 중요한 요소로, ‘전기식 TC’가 가장 만족한 항목으로 분석되었다. 20개의 친환경 컨테이너터미널 운영기술 항목들은 ‘터미널 안벽시스템’, ‘터미널 야드시스템’, ‘터미널 접안지원 시스템’의 3개 요인으로 도출되었다. 이러한 결과들은 향후 우리나라 친환경 컨테이너터미널에 관련한 운영 정책수 립 및 관리지침에 기여할 것으로 기대된다.

Developing similarity based IPA under intuitionistic fuzzy sets to assess leisure bikeways

Since its introduction in 1977, importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been used widely to assess marketing and operating strategies. In previous IPA studies, three methods have been used to position the crosshairs: the mean, median, and middle positions of scale. However, as several studies have pointed out, differently positioning the crosshairs may lead to dramatically different results. To resolve this inconsistency, this study proposes a similarity-based importance-performance analysis (SBIPA) under intuitionistic fuzzy sets. The basic idea of SBIPA is to classify service attributes into the most similar quadrant of a conventional IPA grid according to the proposed similarity measure. Using SBIPA to assess the Tamsui Golden Riverside Bikeway shows that the natural environment of the bikeway is attractive enough to support tourism, but authorities should pay greater attention to improving the facilities of the bikeway.

Evaluation of the On-Campus Dining Services Using Importance-Performance Analysis

The objectives of the current study were to explore the perceived importance and performance/satisfaction of on-campus dining service consumers, to investigate the importance-performance difference between patron and nonpatron customers, and to examine the differences between gender groups. The study compared the respondents’ perceived importance and performance ratings of the dining-service-quality attributes using importance-performance analysis. The resultant importance-performance analysis grid illustrated that food quality and sanitation fell into Quadrant 2 (Keep up the Good Work); price into Quadrant 3 (Low Priority); and service and environment into Quadrant 4 (Possible Overkill). However, the importance-performance analysis comparison of patron/nonpatron groups and gender groups showed that the service attribute was allocated differently.

An Importance-Performance Analysis of Dining Attributes: A Comparison of Individual and Packaged Tourists in Taiwan

Utilizing an importance-performance analysis (IPA), this paper examines the importance and performance of dining attributes in Taiwan as perceived by individual and packaged tourists. This study obtained 435 samples including 180 individual tourists and 255 packaged tourists. The IPA grids indicated that “food hygiene and cleanliness of the restaurant” fell into the “concentrate here” quadrant in these two groups. In the same quadrant, “service quality of the staff” was identified in the individual tourists' sample and “food quality” was identified in the packaged tourists' sample. These are the main factors that need to be improved. Additionally, an independent sample t-test and Chi-square analysis were employed to examine any significant differences between the individual and packaged tourists and among different demographic profiles of tourists, respectively. Afterwards, a follow-up study interviewing the tourists was conducted to compare with the results of the IPA analysis. Implications for the foodservice industry, travel agency and academic research are discussed.

Applying Importance-Performance Analysis for Improving Internal Marketing of Hospital Management in Taiwan

Importance-performance analysis enables management to evaluate and identify the major strengths and weaknesses of a hospital’s key success factors. The author attempts to understand employee expectations and perceptions of hospital internal-marketing and shows the usefulness of the Importance-performance analysis grid in evaluating hospital internal-marketing benefits from employee perspectives in Taiwan. The author identified a list of 18 items from the internal-marketing literature reviews, and each item was rated using a 5-point Likert scale. Responses were obtained from 257 usable questionnaires. The importance-performance grid shows that 4 items fall into the “Keep up the good work” quadrant, 5 items fall into the “Concentrate here” quadrant, 4 items fall into the “Low priority” quadrant, and 5 items fall into the “Possible overkill” quadrant. The findings suggest that an internal-marketing orientation is necessary to better match organizational characteristics and enhance service quality. The results are useful in identifying areas for strategic focus to help hospital managers develop internal-marketing strategies.