Assessment of the quality of service at sports facilities

This study aims; 1) to promote studies on the benefits and other aspects of sports as a result of encouraging people to do sports and the increase in the number of these activities; 2) to investigate whether the quality of the service provided at the sports facilities differ based on the perceptions of individuals using the service as a member, and to take the necessary precautions to prevent such differences. The sample population of this study is the people who were randomly chosen among those benefiting from the sports facilities run by Istanbul Sports Activities Management Inc. (Sport Istanbul), which is an association company of Istanbul Municipality. A questionnaire consisting of 2 parts was used as the data collection tool of this study. In the first part of the data collection tool, a user information form that involves the users' age, gender, marital status, education, income, the purpose of going to the sports centre, the distance covered to get to the sports centre, the duration of the use of the sports centre, the frequency of the weekly use, the amount of time spent in the sports centre, the most frequently preferred hours of use. In the second part of the data collection tool, "the perceived service quality of fitness centers survey", developed by Uçan (2007) was used. The survey consists of 31 statements with 5 point likerts scale (1=I totally disagree, 5= I totally agree). The survey is comprised of the sub-dimensions of the following items; 7 items (1-7) "The Quality of Physical Environment", 3 items (8-10) "The Quality of Ambient Conditions", 3 items (11-13) "The Quality of Equipment Quality", 3 items (14-16) "The Quality of the Program", 10 items (17-26) "The Quality of Interaction", 5 items (27-31) "The Quality of Output". As a result of the study, it was understood that the service quality perception decreases as the educational level and age of the users increases. It was found that women's perception of service quality is lower than men. It was found that married users have higher perception of service quality in terms of "environment quality" and "interaction quality" than single users. It was found that service quality perception decreases as income level increases. Among the goals of doing sports, it was determined that the users primarily use sports facilities "to improve physical appearance" (40.8%) and "to improve their health" (23.8%). It has been concluded that the increase in transportation distance decreases the perception of service quality. It was concluded that the perception of "physical environment quality" and "quality of environment" decrease as the membership period extends. It was found that users who use sports facilities more per week have higher perceptions of service quality in general. It was concluded that service quality perceptions of individuals who spent more time in sports facilities are higher in the sub-dimension of "output quality". It was concluded that the perception of quality in the evening hours is lower in comparison with the other hours. Key words: Sport, Facility, Service Quality.