An Assessment of the Quality of Services Offered by the Nałęczów Health Resort And Spa SA

Abstract

The paper presents the assessment of individual components comprising the offer of the Nałęczów Health Resort and SPA SA. The study stays within the vein of research into competitiveness of health tourism products. Highly topical, such investigations are more and more often described in both national and international research papers. The findings are very useful for entrepreneurs as they may be applied in business practice. The analysis included the components of the ambience and attractiveness of the resort and services it offers. Two cohorts underwent the analysis – paying customers (commercial, paying in full) as well as the non-commercial referred to the resort by the national healthcare system [NFZ] and their social insurance [ZUS]. The research involved collecting the clients’ opinions on their expectations concerning the services and the offer provided by the Nałęczów Resort and SPA. Their expectations were subsequently juxtaposed against the impressions they received using their products. It was possible to identify strong and weak points of the offer owing to the Importance-Performance Analysis [IPA] method that focused of on customers’ perception. Additionally, the findings allowed to specify strategic actions to be aimed at streamlining the company’s performance. The most urgent activities to be undertaken include improving infrastructure and facilities (especially sanitary facilities and the equipment used for providing healthcare services). Furthermore, commercial tourists brought up the problem of a weak flexibility in matching healthcare services to customers’ individual needs.

Keywords

• health tourism
• the Importance-Performance Analysis [IPA] method
• healthcare resorts’ offer
• quality of services
• Health Resort and SPA Nałęczów SA