Pilgrim Satisfaction of Religious Event

by Dr. G.Sridhar M. Ravindranath Dr. G. Narasimha Murthy

Abstract:

Considering a need for understanding the pilgrim satisfaction of a religious event, a study was organized by the authors. The objectives of the study include measuring pilgrim satisfaction, exploring differences in pilgrim satisfaction across selected demographic characteristics, identifying key factors

that influence pilgrim satisfaction and know their relative importance. This paper presents the findings of the study. About 200 pilgrims who visited a Buddhist event were interviewed with a structured questionnaire and responses were sought. Results indicate that providing basic facilities to the pilgrims

would be single most important factor influencing the satisfaction. Further details of the results along with the implications and limitations are presented in the paper. Key words: Tourism, Religious event, Pilgrim Satisfaction.

1Assistant Professor (Marketing Area) Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode 2Faculty, Department of Management, Ramappa Engineering College, Warangal 3Professor, Dept. of Commerce and Business Management, Kakatiya University, Warangal *Citation for this article: Sridhar, G. Ravindranath, M. Murthy, G. Narasimha : Pilgrim Satisfaction of Religious Event., Interscience MR, Vol.1 Issue 1,2008 pp 1 to 10.

Tourism in India contributes 6 percent to GDP, has 9 percent of the employed population (39). As per Tourism Ministry report (22), India witnessed a positive growth in foreign tourist arrivals for the last three years reaching a level of 3.92 million against 3.46 million during last year. The growth

rate is about 13.2 percent as against 5 – 6 percent of growth world wide during 2005. The report also states that tourism contributes over Rs. 25,170 crores to the foreign exchange earnings. Nearly 3.92 million foreign tourists arrived in India during 2005 and the domestic tourists also stood high at 382

million in 2005. As India is a land of ancient civilization, intense spirituality and religious faith, it is no wonder that most of the tourists – both domestic and foreign – are pilgrims. There is a paradigm shift in tourism consumption throughout the world moving towards culture, history and nature seeking perspective (24) which India attempted to capture. India has perhaps

the oldest continually operating pilgrimage tradition in the entire world. Reasons include deeply ingrained religious philosophy in every walk of life of the people, existence of numerous religious destinations and an array of religious festivals and fairs organised round the year. Inspite of the importance of religious tourism, scholars have not widely researched especially in the area of understanding the key factors that can influence the pilgrim

satisfaction of a relgious event. If the organisers realize and identify the critical factors that influence satisfaction of pilgrims they can take appropriate action in the present and future. Infact, world wide, understanding key variables influencing the pilgrim satisfaction is still inadequate inspite of a large body of literature available on tourist satisfaction like Pizam and Taylor (35), Choi and Chu (7), and Ibrahim and Gill (21). Some of

the important reasons for understanding pilgrim satisfaction are as follows; 1. Many agencies like government, organizing committees, private players involved in organizing and marketing religious events spend huge amount of money every year. If organizers have to judiciously spend the money, imperative is the knowledge of pilgrim satisfaction. If they can identify the key factors which influence the pilgrim satisfaction, resources can be diverted accordingly.

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2. Many agencies would like to organize events on regular basis at the behest of the pilgrims. For this, they need to ensure that the arrangements for the current event are satisfying. If pilgrims are satisfied with the arrangements, positive word of mounth spreads and the propensity of the pilgrims’ recommendation of the events to others would increase.

3. Satisfaction of pilgrims is an indication of the quality of services rendered by the event organisers. It acts as a yardstick for measurement of the success of the event by the organisers.

4. In India, responsibility of organizing and managing mega religious events to some extent remains on the government. If government fails to provide adequate facilities at the events, then it has to face the wrath of the public. As per a popular belief, few years back the ruling party of the Government of Andhra Pradesh failed to provide basic facilities to a well known religious event in the region of Telangana. As a consequence the party lost many votes in the election that immediately followed the religious event.

Considering the need and importance of exploring key variables influencing pilgrim satisfaction, a study was conducted. Objectives of the study include measuring pilgrim satisfaction, exploring differences in pilgrim satisfaction across selected demographic characteristics, identifying key factors that

influence pilgrim satisfaction and know their relative importance. Initially the paper details about the conceptual details of pilgrim satisfaction, methodology and results of the study. Finally, an attempt is made to summarise the findings, discuss implications and limitations of the study. Pilgrim Satisfaction Definition A tourist can be called a pilgrim if the purpose of travel to a destination or event is to perform rituals driven by religion or

spirituality and not any activity remunerative in nature. Generally, visit is for less than a year and more than 1 day (44). A pilgrim can visit any of the following four types of attractions; natural attractions, man made objects created for purpose other than attracting pilgrims and eventually become attractions, sights constructed from the beginning as attractions and cultural events, and religious events (38). Pilgrimage to sacred place as an

act of religious devotion is an age old tradition, followed by religions all over the world and especially in India (17). Pilgrimage involves, sightseeing, traveling, visiting different places, in some cases, voyaging by air or sea etc. and buying the local memorabilia, almost everything a tourist does (17). Pilgrim satisfaction of religious events indicates the quality of services rendered by the event organizers, prevents negative evaluation and unfavourable

word of mouth of the events. This is similar to a tourist future behaviour as observed by Gyte and Phelps (18) and Kozak (26). For the study, pilgrim satisfaction can be defined as the outcome of the pilgrims’ subjective comparison of the expected and actual facilities and arrangements at the event. This conceptualisation is similar to consumer or tourist satisfaction of a product or destination which is the outcome of consumers’ subjective comparison of

expected and received product or destination attribute levels (30, 40, 45, 34, 20). Satisfaction Measurement Paradigms Tourist satisfaction is widely researched in the marketing domain (9, 37, 1, 6, 4, 14). Much of this satisfaction literature in tourism is drawn from the theories propounded in consumer behaviour. Consumer satisfaction is considered as a major issue in post purchase period (43). It determines the quality delivered to customers through the

product or service and the accompanying services (41). Broadly, there are two paradigms of satisfaction research observed in consumer behaviour literature, which include Expectancy Disconfirmation Approach (EDA) and Emotional Perspective. However, in the recent past, theories which are in mid-way between these two paradigms are also proposed.

As per Expectancy Disconfirmation Approach, a consumer is considered as rational and that he / she evaluates his experiences with an attraction against and ideal standard or comparative standard or minimal standard or to his / her own expectations (42). As a result of interaction between the consumers’ pre purchase expectations and post purchase evaluations, consumer would be either satisfied or dissatisfied (40, 12). If outcomes match expectations conformation occurs, lest disconfirmation.

Emotional perspective scholars raise their eyebrows against EDA approach and question if a consumer is always rational. Scholars in this paradigm define consumer satisfaction as consumer’s emotional response to use of a product or service (30, 4).

Many do not agree completely to either the first or second paradigms as they believe that consumer satisfaction is a complex human process that involves cognitive and affective processes, psychological and physiological influences (29). Anton (3) defines consumer satisfaction as a state of mind in which the customer’s needs, wants and expectations throughout the product or service life have been met or exceeded resulting in subsequent repurchase and loyalty.

WTO (1995) also consider consumer satisfaction as a psychological concept that involves the feeling of well being and pleasure that results from obtaining what one hopes for and expects from an appealing product and / service. For this reasons, the present study follows the mid path.

Operationalisation of Satisfaction Construct

Operationalisation of satisfaction has been done on the basis of performance evaluation, making the inclusion of disconfirmation process unnecessary (33, 8, 10). Many scholars attempted to measure attribute satisfaction so as to identify the extent of consumer satisfaction with products and services. Attribute satisfaction refers to individual assessment of the degree to which a service performance is perceived to have met or exceeded desires and expectations

(37). In tourism research, such measurement of attribute satisfaction gives direction to the extent of the tourist satisfaction for an attraction (37, 6). Some tourism experts have even identified key factors that effect the tourist satisfaction. For example, Goodall and Bergsma (15) consider total cost a

fifth component, in addition to environment, facilities/ services, accessibility and image. Kozak and Remmington (25) identified five broad categories after synthesizing several studies on tourist destinations. These are environment, facilities and services, infrastructure, hospitality, and cost.

Review of literature also suggests that satisfaction measurement (whether consumer or tourist) has broadly followed two perspectives, viz. transaction and cumulative (13, 5, 32, 1, 23, 2). With regard to pilgrim satisfaction measurement, transaction specific satisfaction is a post experience evaluative

judgment of specific occasion that pilgrim would have encountered in the entire event. Cumulative satisfaction on the other hand is the overall evaluation based on the entire experience of the visit to event. The present study considers pilgrim satisfaction on the basis of attributes of the various services provided at the event and follows a cumulative satisfaction measurement.

METHODOLOGY

The study was exploratory in nature and is based on a survey conducted on pilgrims who visited a Buddhist religious event ‘Kalachakra 2006’. This event was chosen for the study for several reasons. Firstly, it is an international event which received wide media coverage and importance in the recent past.

Secondly, as both foreign and domestic pilgrims were expected to attend the event, the study would likely receive a wider validity. Thirdly, the arrangements and allocation of resources for the event have been elaborate giving the study a wider scope to measure the pilgrims’ satisfaction. Finally,

the event was at a nearby destination to us and we could optimize our time and money.

Instrument

Questionnaire comprised of two sections. First section attempted to capture demographic characteristics of the respondents and the second section measured pilgrim satisfaction. As there is scant literature on pilgrim satisfaction, items for measuring the construct have been generated from various studies

which measured tourist and consumer satisfaction (13, 1, 2, 7, 21). Twenty five items were initially identified and were pretested in two phases. In the first phase pretesting was conducted using expert opinion. Four experts of marketing and tourism were requested to reduce the number of items and the

experts suggested deleting seven items. Later a pilot testing was done on 20 respondents by asking them to recollect any recent religious event they attended and evaluate the event on the items given to them. Among eighteen five items were found to be not worth mentioning and hence were deleted from the

scale. After pretesting, the modified instrument was used for the study. The 13 item, pilgrim satisfaction scale was used to rate the satisfaction of the pilgrims for the event ‘Kalachakra 2006’ on a five point Likert like scale ranging from 1 (Highly Dissatisfied) to 5 (Highly Satisfied). An item was also included to measure the overall pilgrimage satisfaction on a five point Likert like scale ranging from 1 (Highly Dissatisfied) to 5 (Highly Satisfied).

Sample Plan

Questionnaire was administered on 200 pilgrims who stayed atleast one day at venue and attended the event. Each respondent was requested to spare fifteen minutes of their time to complete the questionnaire. Incase the respondent felt he had no time immediately, he or she were contacted in the evening in their respective pandals after seeking permission.

Sample Respondents

Among 200 respondents, 118 respondents were below 30 years, 56 respondents were between 31 50 years and 26 respondents were 51 years and above. 134 respondents were male and 64 were female. Of the total respondents 80 were from India, 72 were from Tibet, 20 from Nepal, 2 from Bhutan and 28 from other countries. 12 respondents were monks, 30 were business men, 70 were students and 88 were employed in various occupations. Among the respondents, 138 were Buddhists, 50 were Hindus and 12 belonged to other religions. 142 respondents visited Kalachakra 2006 for participating in the rituals, 50 respondents visited the event as a part of their overall tourist visit to India, and 8 respondents visited the event for business purposes. The number of respondents with income range of ‘below $500’ were 100, between ‘$501 - $1000 were 12, between ‘$2001 - $5000’ were 22 and ‘$5001 and above’ were 12 pilgrims.

Reliability and Content Validity

The thirteen item pilgrim satisfaction scale had shown Cronbach alpha value of .798 (Table 1). Alpha value indicates that the items are highly internal consistent (27, 28).

Pearson correlation between mean of the overall satisfaction of the event and the mean of the pilgrim satisfaction scale stood at .864 (Table 1) which was significant at .01 level indicating that the scale used for measuring pilgrim satisfaction is content valid.

Mean Scores of the Scale

Mean score of the pilgrim satisfaction scale was found as 25.70 and the mean score of the item ‘overall satisfaction’ stood at 3.30 (Table 1). Using quartiles, mean scores of the pilgrim satisfaction scale were divided into three groups as follows; ‘dissatisfied (DS)’ pilgrims who are in the range of mean scores 13 - 22, ‘moderately satisfied (MS)’ pilgrims who are in the range of mean scores 23 – 26 and ‘highly satisfied (HS)’ pilgrims who are in the range of mean scores 27 - 36. The number of dissatisfied, moderately satisfied and highly satisfied pilgrims are 66, 54 and 80 respectively.

Table 1 Cross Tabulation and Correlations of Demographics and Pilgrim Satisfaction Demographic Variables Pilgrim Satisfaction Scale# Overall Satisfaction DS MS HS N Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Age Below 30 34 24 60 118 26.46 6.060 3.39 1.206 31 - 50 22 24 10 56 24.57 4.085 3.20 .796 51 and above 10 6 10 26 24.69 6.380 3.08 1.324 Sex Male 36 26 72 134 27.01 6.096 3.49 1.168 Female 30 28 8 66 23.03 3.406 2.89 .914 Occupation Monk 6 2 4 12 24.50 4.462 3.17 1.030 Employee 14 22 12 48 25 3.925 3.33 .808 Business 10 8 12 30 26.07 4.893 3.30 1.022 Student 20 16 34 70 26.09 5.561 3.30 1.232 Others 16 6 18 40 25.95 8.130

3.28 1.377 Religion Buddhist 50 30 58 138 25.54 5.819 3.25 1.201 Hindu 14 18 18 50 26.20 5.862 3.40 .990 Others 2 6 4 12 25.50 2.316 3.42 .669 Education Religious Practices 10 6 6 22 26.64 6.918 2.86 1.320 12th Standard 16 8 24 48 25.50 6.748 3.23 1.309 Graduation 24 24 34 82 26.32 5.326 3.46 1.009 Post Graduation 8 14 12 34 26.12 3.444 3.38 .922 Others 8 2 4 14 23.23 5.734 3.00 1.109 Income Below $500 38 18 44 100 25.06 6.045 3.15 1.290 $500 - $1000 0 0 12 12 32.33 4.334 4.33 .651 $1000 - $2000 14 22 18 54 25.78 4.978 3.39 .940 $2000 - $5000 8 10 4 22 25.18 5.342 3.23 .869 $5000 and above 6 4 2 12 25.00 2.697 3.17 .577 Nationality India 22 22 36 80 26.38 5.965 3.38 1.036 Tibet 22 18 32 72 25.97 5.436 3.44 1.149 Nepal 10 4 6 20 24.20 6.453 2.95 1.356 Others 12 10 6 28 24.14 4.486 2.93 1.052 Total 66 54 80 200 25.70 5.670 3.30 1.124 Number of Items 13 1 Cronbac Alpha .798 NA Pearson Corr. (2 tailed) .864**

Here DS – Dissatisfaction, MS – Moderately Satisfied, HS – Highly Satisfied, N – Number of Sample Respondents, S.D. – Standard Deviation # Pilgrim Satisfaction was measured on five point scale with 1 = Highly Dissatisfied, 2 = Dissatisfied, 3 = Neither Satisfied nor dissatisfied, 4 = Satisfied, 5 = Highly Satisfied. ** indicates significance at .001 level.

Demographics and Pilgrim Satisfaction

To know if there are differences in pilgrim satisfaction across the demographic variables chosen for the study, cross tabulation, mean scores and ANOVA have been used. To know which means are significantly different from others; equal variances was assumed and Post hoc tests were conducted using Fishers LSD. Results of cross tabulation, mean scores, Pearson Correlation value are presented in Table 1 and results of ANOVA and multiple comparisons are presented in Table 2.

Table 2 ANOVA and Multiple Comparisons using Fisher’s LSD ANOVA Fishers’ LSD F Sig (2 tail) DS MS HS

Age 3.675 .027 DS * MS * HS * * Sex 19.077 .000 DS * MS * HS * * Occupation 3.860 .023 DS MS * HS * Religion 3.834 .023 DS * MS * * HS * * Education .427 .653 DS MS HS Income 6.574 .002 DS * MS * * HS * * Nationality 2.981 .050 DS * MS HS *

• The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

Here DS – Dissatisfaction, MS – Moderately Satisfied, HS – Highly Satisfied

Note: As ANOVA for Education was not significant, multiple comparisons was not calculated

Cross tabulation results presented in Table 1 indicate that there are more highly satisfied pilgrims in the age group of ‘Below 30’. In other age groups, many pilgrims were found to be either moderately satisfied or dissatisfied. Mean scores of overall satisfaction item for all the three age groups is higher than the theoretical mean of three. F value is significant across the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores (Table 2) which indicates that there are significant differences in the mean values of pilgrim satisfaction across age groups. Multiple comparisons using LSD results indicate that, mean values of (DS, HS) and (MS, HS) are significantly different from other mean values.

Table 1 indicates that there are many male pilgrims who are satisfied and many female pilgrims who are dissatisfied. Mean values of the pilgrim satisfaction scale and overall satisfaction item also indicate the same trend. F value is significant across the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores (Table 2) which indicates that

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there are significant differences in the mean values of pilgrim satisfaction between both the sexes. Multiple comparisons using Fishers LSD indicate that (DS, HS) and (MS, DS) are significantly different from other mean values.

Among various occupational categories only ‘students’ and ‘others’ were found to be highly satisfied with the event. Many other occupational category respondents were either dissatisfied or moderately satisfied. Mean scores of all the occupational categories fall under moderately satisfied class. For the

item overall satisfaction, mean score of all the occupational categories was found to be higher than the theoretical mean of three. F value has been found significant across the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores (Table 2) which implies that there are significant differences in the mean scores of pilgrim satisfaction across the occupational categories. Fishers LSD multiple comparisons indicate that the mean values of (MS, HS) are significantly different from other mean values.

Pilgrims from various religions were found to be moderately satisfied on the whole. Mean values substantiate this trend (Table 1). For the item overall

satisfaction, mean values of all the religions was found higher than theoretical mean of three. F value across the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores has been found to be significant (Table 2). This implies that mean values of pilgrim satisfaction is different across religions. Fishers LSD multiple

comparisons indicate that the mean values of (DS, MS), (MS, HS), (HS, DS), and (HS, MS) are significantly different from other mean values. Among education levels, pilgrims from 12th standard and Graduation were found to be highly satisfied and pilgrims from other educational levels were mostly

either dissatisfied or moderately satisfied. Mean values of the pilgrim satisfaction scale for the respondents of all age groups indicate that many are moderately satisfied. For the overall satisfaction item, mean value was found to be higher than theoretical mean of three. F value across the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores

was not significant (Table 2) and hence multiple comparison tests are not conducted. Cross tabulated results and mean values of the pilgrim satisfaction scale between income and pilgrim satisfaction levels (Table 1) indicate that there are

many highly satisfied pilgrims in most of the categories. For the item overall satisfaction, mean values of the income categories are higher than the theoretical mean of three. F value has been found significant (Table 2) which implies that there are significant differences among various levels of pilgrim satisfaction. Fishers LSD multiple comparison test indicate that (DS, MS), (MS, HS), and (HS, DS) mean values are significantly different from other mean values.

Among the Indians and Tibetans, many pilgrims were highly satisfied with the event. However many pilgrims from Nepal and other countries were either moderately satisfied or dissatisfied (Table 1). Mean values of the pilgrim satisfaction scale indicate that pilgrims from all the nationalities are

moderately satisfied. For the item overall satisfaction, mean values of only Indians and Tibetans is higher than theoretical mean. Pilgrims from Nepal, and other countries was lower than the theoretical mean of three. F value (Table 2) is significant which implies that there are significant differences among various levels of pilgrim satisfaction. Fishers LSD multiple comparison test indicate that (DS, HS) mean values are significantly different from other mean values.

Factor Analysis

Pilgrims’ perception of thirteen attributes were factor analysed using principle component analysis with orthogonal VARIMAX rotation to identify the underlying dimensions that explain the variance in the attributes. Table 3 provides details about the factor analysis of the scale. KMO measure of sampling

adequacy was .768 which is above the prescribed minimum level (19) and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity value has been found to be significant. These two values indicate that the factor structures can be approved for further analysis.

Communalities Reception .632 .791 Availability of Information .680 .797 Guidance and Assistance .703 .789 Transport .618 .703 Accommodation Facilities .620 .748 Medical Facilities .513 .497 Banking Facilities .726 .835 Communication Facilities .504 .693 Security at

the destination .663 .654 Prices / Charges .729 -.627 Environment .614 .772 Cultural Programmes .587 .709 Water Supply .440 .456 Eigen Values 3.901 1.884 1.199 1.044 Variance Explained 30.010 14.496 9.255 8.029 Factor Mean 11.89 5.78 3.93 4.10 a: Principal Component Analysis using Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 5 iterations. b: Factor loadings more than .45 and factors with eigen values greater than 1 are only considered. **sig. at .001

From the VARIMAX rotated component matrix, four factors with eigen values greater than 1 representing 61.761 percent of the explained variance were extracted. Factor loadings which are greater than .45 were only considered as prescribed for a sample size of 200 and below by Hair et al (19). The rotated

component matrix produced a clear factor structure with relatively higher loadings on the appropriate factors. The four factors extracted were named as follows Factor 1 - Basic Facilities: This factor contains six items and explains 30.01 percent of variance in the data and has Eigen value of 3.901. The six items associated with this factor are ‘Reception’, ‘Availability of Information’, ‘Guidance and Assistance’, ‘Accommodation Facilities’, ‘Medical

facilities’ and ‘Water supply’. Factor 2 – Support Facilities: This factor contains three items and explains 14.496 percent of variance in the data and has Eigen value of 1.884. The three items in this factor are ‘Transport’, “Banking facilities’ and ‘Communication facilities’.

Factor 3 – Enhancers: This factor contains two items and explains 9.255 percent of variance in the data and has Eigen value of 1.199. The two items associated with this factor are ‘Environment’ and ‘Cultural programmes’. Factor 4 – Concerns: This factor contains two items and explains 8.029 percent of

variance in the data and has Eigen value of 1.044. The two items associated with this factor are ‘Security at the destination’ and ‘Prices / Charges’. Negative values of Prices / charges indicate inverse relationship with the consumer satisfaction. This implies that more the prices and charges at the

destination, lesser would be the satisfaction. Multiple Regression The four factors identified from factor analysis viz. basic facilities, support facilities, enhancers and concerns, were regressed with dependent variable as overall satisfaction. As the construct validity is not checked and multi

collinearity was checked for, summated factor scores were used for the respective factors. The mean item scores of each factor were summed to form a simple summated factor score. One of the objectives in using multiple regression was to identify the relative importance of each factor on pilgrim satisfaction

through the beta coefficients. Table 4 details the results of the multiple regression analysis. Table 4 Multiple Regression Results

Dependent Variable: Overall Satisfaction

In the results, four factors collectively explained about 76 percent of variance in the pilgrim satisfaction i.e. R2 stood at .760. Considering that standard error of estimate is .56 at 0.05 significance level regression estimate is one from the above formula either plus or minus 1.96*.566. The results indicates a good fit. Among the four factors, basic facilities has higher beta

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values followed by enhances. Both support facilities and concerns have equal weightage. This implies that the pilgrim visiting the events would be highly satisfied if the basic facilities are provided well. Careful observation indicates that factor one is nearly twice important than any of the other three

factors. Discussion Cross tabulated results along with ANOVA results indicate that for the demographic factors like age, sex, occupation, religion, income and nationality there are significant differences in the means. This implies that organisers need to focus on arrangements according the differences in various demographic characteristics of the pilgrims. Cue can be taken from the mean differences among groups given by multiple comparisons. Regression

results have indicated that ‘basic facilities’ is the key factor influencing the pilgrim satisfaction followed by enhancers. The huge difference in the beta values between basic facilities and other factors indicate the key role and importance of basic facilities in influencing the pilgrim satisfaction. Implication for the organisers of the religious events is that if basic facilities are provided to the pilgrims; a reasonably good level of satisfaction

can be ensured. Organisers should invest good amount of their time and human resources in providing the right information at right time and right place. Pilgrims’ problems need to be addressed properly through various reception counters. This requires appropriate training of the personnel or scheduling trained personnel to be incharge of the activities which require direct contact with the pilgrims. Training programmes focusing on improving the personnel

courtesy, helpfulness, understandability, language skills, and appearance should be conducted by the concerned organizers of the religious events. Organizers of religious events should place appropriate instructions and guidelines through out the event location. Added, organisers also should take care of arranging for accommodation facilities. This requires investments in terms of money and personnel. Efforts also should be made to arrange for clean

drinking water supply and medical facilities so that no diseases spread. Enhancers play the role of catalysts for the event. If the organisers of religious events choose good locations with serene atmosphere pilgrims would find it comfortable and thus increases their satisfaction levels. Cultural programmes depicting the theme of the event would add to the satisfaction of the

pilgrims. Third position is shared by the two factors; support facilities and concerns. Organisers should choose event locations which has good transport facilities or should ensure that there are special arrangements for the pilgrims for transport. Events which are of international in nature like that of Kalachakra –

2006 should essential be equipped with banking facilities. As pilgrims require exchange and payment of money, organisers should tie ups with banks to provide required services. Added, the event through various sources like internet, TV and print media should be communicated to the potential visitors. With increased terrorist attacks, concerns like security also form part and parcel of the arrangements. Further, prices charged for various services were found to be negatively related to the consumer satisfaction. This indicates that higher the prices, lower would be the satisfaction. Summary and Limitations Using quartile deviations when mean scores of pilgrim satisfaction scale were divided into three groups, it was found that more number of pilgrims were moderately satisfied. This shows that arrangements at the event Kalachakra – 2006 have been met the expectations of the pilgrims

moderately. Further, the scale used for measuring pilgrim satisfaction has been found reliable and content valid. It was identified that there are differences in the pilgrim satisfaction mean scores on various demographic variables like age, sex, religion, occupation, income and nationality. When the scale was subjected to factor analysis, thirteen items gave way to five factors which were named as basic facilities, support facilities, enhancers and

concerns. After regressing the factors, basic facilities is found to have strong influence on the pilgrim satisfaction followed by support facilities and enhancers. 9

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