Factors Affecting Visitors Satisfaction: An Empirical Study on the Paharpur

With the advancement of the tourism industry, the importance of research on visitor satisfaction has been increasing as of recent years. The prime objective of current study is to explore the factors influencing visitor satisfaction from the perspective of archaeological sites, in Bangladesh. A thorough and wellconstructed research design is administered to analyze 200 data collected from the visitors having experience in visiting Paharpur Buddha Vihara. From the data, we conducted an extensive analysis to find out the main factors which influence visitor satisfaction. It is recognized that there are some essential factors; destination attractions, safety and security, favorable environment, food attraction and cost at said destination. These factors significantly influence visitor satisfaction. It is expected that the outcome of the study will support the tourism practitioners in planning and development for successful business operations. The paper concludes with some implications and future research directions.


INTRODUCTION:
Tourism is the largest industry in the world in terms of revenue and employment generation. In spite of global economic uncertainty from the recent past, the tourism industry remains stable and is positively growing in recent years (Vetitnev et al., 2013). According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) in 2018, Travel & Tourism contributed total US$ 2750.7 billion to world GDP, representing 3.2% of global GDP. The sector supported 1 in 11 jobs in the earth. The industry grew by 10.4% in 2018 and the most mentionable part is that this positive growth is continuing in the 6th consecutive year. Again it was forecasted that travel & tourism will grow by 3.6% in 2019 and up to January 2020 the global international tourists are grown by 3.8%. This is a positive scenario of growth according to the forecasting of 2019. Tourism in Bangladesh has been emerged as a small but rapidly growing sector in the economy since the 1990s (Roy & Roy, 2015). In the recent years, the contribution of tourism industry to the national economy has been increased significantly. According to the country annual report of WTTC (2019), the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP was 4.4% of total GDP in 2018 and this sector supported by 3.9% of total employment. Moreover in 2018 Travel & Tourism visitor exports generated 0.8% of total exports. In 17 April 2018 Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Tourist Police Sohrab Hossain published statistical data collected from around 800 tourist spots in Bangladesh that the number of domestic tourists stood at around 90,000 which has increased to 3.5 crore in 2017 while the number of foreign tourists has increased from 16,000 to 106,000. The data expressed the potentiality of booming up the tourism and hospitality industry.
Cox's Bazar, world famous mangrove forest Sundarban and cultural heritages. For cultural heritage or archaeological sites she is also called a country of ancient terrain full of historical attractions (Rahman, 2012). We can see from the early history of Bengal that the ruling dynasties such as the Pala rulers and Deva Kings gave out royal patronage to the Buddhists. An abundant amount of wellestablished and self-sufficient monasteries sprung up as a result of this patronage (Tuhin & Mojumder, 2011). After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 the government of Bongodondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman undertook some field projects for dis-covering undiscovered areas and they run a fairly ambitious scheme of excavations on selected sites. At present the exploration is hardly seen but the project has already discovered many historical and archaeological sites (Hasan et al., 2013).
The Paharpur Buddhist Viharais a noteworthy discovery of the project. It is 14l km far from Rajshahi division and is situated in small village Paharpur of north-west district Naogaon, Bangladesh. In 1985 UNESCO declared this place as world heritage site. This 7th century archaeological site covers approximately an area of 27 acres of land. The entire establishment occupying a quadrangular court of 900 ft. externally on each side and has high enclosure-walls about 16 ft. in thickness and 12 ft. to 15 ft. in height. There are 177 rooms comprising of 45 cells in the north and 44 in the east west and south sections with a well-planned gateway complex on the north. Due to the influence of other temples of south and south east Asia, we can see a temple embracing the pyramidal cruciform structure (Tuhin & Mojumder, 2011). Since ancient times, the entire region of Bengal (including the Paharpur Buddhist Vihara) is one of the vital links between India and Southeast Asia because of its geographical location (UNESCO, 2018). The destination has mentionable contribution to local and national economy. Government earns revenue from the destination as entrance fee. The local citizens earn revenue from 53 different small businesses like restaurant, showpiece items, cottage rent, established around the destination. Usually everyday 1000 visitors visit this place. In winter season about 3000 visitors visit every day. Students from different educational institution come to visit this archaeological site as part of study tour. Beside this, many visitors come with their family members in different occasions.
When visiting the destination, visitors interact with different components of the destination, which as a whole, offers a package of diverse attributes which is not only limited to the stunning sceneries or historical reference and value of those who previously resided there, but also includes facilities and services which cater to the everyday needs of the visitor. The interacted components or factors affect visitor satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting visitors' satisfaction and to determine the level of visitors' satisfaction in respect of an archeological site Paharpur Buddha Vihara.

Significance of the Study
Satisfied visitors help tourism marketers to increase visitor providing the message from self-interest. There are also the underlying factors for building sustainable tourism destination. But it is the first task to know the factors which satisfied visitors. This study has significance contribution to identify the influencing factors that affect visitor satisfaction. This research will also helpful on tourism decision making process considering the influential factors for visitor satisfaction. The result of the study may substantially contribute to managerial understanding of visitor satisfaction. At the theory level, this study is able to produce greater understanding of the variables/factors that appear to be most responsible in structuring visitor satisfaction of a destination. In reality the result of this study will provide managers with greater insight concerning the potential benefits associated with visitor satisfaction. Outcomes of the study might have used as an index by the concern tourism marketers as well as stakeholders for improvement of their service quality and formulating marketing strategies for future directions. In addition, the outcome of the study will contribute a lot in the development of archeological tourism of Bangladesh by identifying important attributes that satisfy the visitors who visit archaeological destinations. The current study will also help tourism planners in developing strategies and friendly tourism policy. Furthermore, the authors are expecting the study will contribute in tourists' satisfaction research.

Research Gaps and Objectives
Past studies about archaeological tourism and visitor satisfaction have focused on identifying the characteristics, development, and management of archaeological tourism, as well as on investigating demographic and travel behaviour characteristics of tourists who visit archaeological destinations. Williams  with the visit to the destinations. The lowest levels of satisfaction were observed over attributes such as health services, city transport and shops. It was also found that some factors, such as purpose of travel, source of payment for travel choice of accommodation, holiday organization mode and tourists' spending affected tourist satisfaction. This study developed a model which examines the relationships between customer satisfaction, affecting factors and destination loyalty of tourists. Research findings showed that there were strong relationships between those indicators. It was also found that tourists who were satisfied with destinations' attributes are willing to revisit a resort destination.
The study of Al-Ababneh (2013) examined the impact of service quality on tourist satisfaction. This study found that service quality directly impact on tourist satisfaction and service quality plays key role in tourism by increasing level of satisfaction. In this study service quality comprised of three factorsdestination facilities, destination accessibility and destination attraction which positively and negatively affect tourist satisfaction. In the findings the contributor identified that destination facilities (restaurant, souvenir and tour guide) and destination accessibility (maps, parking, toilet) are significant predicator of tourist satisfaction and there have a positive relationship among destination facilities, destination accessibility and satisfaction whereas destination attractions (museum) are moderately positively related to tourist satisfaction. Thiumsak and Ruangkanjanases (2016) implemented a study for identifying the key factors which influence international visitors to revisit. The study discovered that visitors' perceived satisfaction is the main influencing factor to revisit and satisfaction factors are accommodation, shopping, and attitude of local people. The study also found that the above mentioned factors are positively related with revisit intention.
The aim of the study of Khuong & Quyen (2016) was to measure the key factors affecting international tourists perceived service quality and their return intention towards a specific destination. The study discovered that recreation and entertainment are the strong influential factors whereas some other factors like perceived service quality, culture, history and art, safety and security, local cuisine, negative attributes, perceived price, natural environment, and destination image also had positive effects on international tourist return intention as the tourist are satisfied with the service attribute of the factors. They also mentioned that only one factorinfrastructure negatively effect on tourist return intention. Shahrivar (2012) conducted an extensive literature review based study for investigating the factors that influence tourist satisfaction. The study identified eight attribute factors named natural factors, cultural features, recreation and shopping facilities, accessibility, infrastructure, reception, services, cost and price which affect tourist satisfaction. The study also identified thirty sub attributes. The result of the study showed that the tourist are satisfied with the multiple attributes and dissatisfied with eight attribute whereas in seven rest attributes the tourist are in indifferent position.
Rajes (2013) administered a study for developing a destination loyalty theoretical model by using tourist perception, destination image and tourist satisfaction. In the findings of the study the contributor develop four construct. Tourist satisfaction construct is one of them which influenced by factors entertainments, destination attractions and atmosphere, accommodation, food, transportation services and shopping. This study also reveals that tourist perception, destination image and tourist satisfaction directly influence destination loyalty. Suanmali (2014) administered a study for identifying the major factors affecting tourist satisfaction. The major finding reveals that cost of staying act as the major influencing factors. The other significant factors are environment, hospitality, infrastructure, attraction and accessibility.

METHODOLOGY:
The purpose of this study is to identify the factors which affect visitors' satisfaction in Paharpur Buddha Vihara. In order to make the research more accurate and to reach its objectives, the quantitative research approach was applied in this study. The study data was collected by using convenient sampling method of 200 respondents. The data obtained from the visitors who visited the Vihara at least for a single time. Total 28 variables are comprised the questionnaire. The questionnaires were developed from the major concepts of related literature and from the field study (Table 1(a) in appendix). All questions were based on seven point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7, in which 1 is "very strongly disagree" and 7 is "very strongly agree". Principle component factor analysis with varimax rotation (Table 4(d) in appendix) was performed on the survey data. Before that it was found that Kaiser Normalization Sample adequacy 0.730 was acceptable level. Principle components analysis (PCA) is the commonly used method for grouping the variables under few unrelated factors. Variables with a factor loading of higher than 0.6 are grouped under a factor. But only one factor loading 0.592 was considered for its importance with this study. A factor loading is the correlation between the original variable with the specific factor and the key to understand the nature of that particular factor (Dabasish, 2004). After deducting the loading below 0.6 in 6 iterations 5 factors and 15 attributes are finally found out of 28 variables.

FINDINGS AND RESULTS:
Visitors Socio-Demographic Characteristics: The socio-demographic characteristics and traveled behavior of the sample visitors are presented in Table 5(e) in appendix. The table shows that more than half (60%) of the respondents are aged between 21-30 Years and second one (20%) is less than 20 years. In terms of occupation, nearly half of the respondents are enrolling as student (43.5%), about quarter of the respondents are enrolling as Government employee (23.5%) and private organization employee (27%). The Table 5(e) also shows that majority of the respondents (61.5%) are in graduation level in terms of education and 17% have been completed this level that means they are in post-graduation level whereas 15% are in HSC level. In terms of respondents own or their parents' income level, the respondents are so scattered such as 26% respondents income level are 20,001-25,000 tk., 20% are 10,001-20,000 tk., 11.5% are less than tk 10,000 and the 10.5% respondents income level is 30,001-35,000 tk.. As shown in the table majority respondents are male (57.5%) and unmarried (59%).
The respondents are come from different divisions-Rangpur (28%), Dhaka (24.5%), Rajshahi (18%), Barisal (12.5%), Khulna and Sylhet (7.5%) for visiting this archeological site. In case of the question, how many times visited in this place, maximum respondents (69%) said that they have visited 2-5 times and 31% visited more than 5 times. In the last question of the questionnaire about visiting partner, half (51%) of the respondents said that they enjoy to visit with friends and 36.5% with family. We can conclude in this point that people enjoy to visit in FnF (Friends and Family) way. In the analysis of respondents' socio demographic profile, it is found that young generation has deep passion on visiting different tour destination and they want to visit in the HSC to Graduation level. In addition visitors are said that they visited Paharpur Buddha Vihara repeatedly. Soit may said that the visitors are satisfied as they are visited the destination repeatedly. It is rational that any person who is not satisfied about any destination, he/she will not visit the destination repeatedly.

Influential factors for Visitor Satisfaction (Exploratory Factors Analysis)
The study result show exploratory factors which affect visitors' satisfaction of Paharpur Buddha Vihara. The variables which are highly related within the group are considered within the factor. The study with 15 variables and 5 factors has been used until reaching the study objectives. The factor analysis result show that five factors influence on visitor satisfaction. The factors are: Destination Attraction, Safety-Security, Favorable Environment, Food Attraction and Cost (Table 1).  The second most important factor which influence on visitor satisfaction is safety security of the destination which lead the variables neat and clean destination with loading 0.754, safety food served at the destination with loading 0.737, non-smoking place loading 0.711 and up to mark security of the destination with loading 0.680 ( Table 3).    This factor consists of two attributes which are highly correlated with the factor namely reasonable food price at the destination loading 0.699 and affordable transportation cost loading 0.697 ( Table  6). In tourism most of the visitors spend their pocket money for mental satisfaction and they do not want to spend in unfruitful or useless means (way). For this, visitors consciously evaluate price and cost of any particular destination. This factor is supported by different tourism related studies (Vetitnev et

DISCUSSION:
This Paragraph is briefly addressed the main findings of the study. The study has been identified 5 influencing factors of visitor satisfaction. In this study, contributors have also considered several leading variables which influence visitor satisfaction. Out of twenty eight variables fifteen variables like-Attractive archaeological symbol, Wonderful diversity in historical structure (church, castle, temple), Attractive Buddhist stupa in the center, Great historical importance of the destination, Attractive architectural beauty of the destination, Neat and clean destination, Safety food at the destination, Non-smoking place, Up to mark security of the destination, Sound, noiseless &quite place, Spacious and chaos free roads facilities, Available local foods at the restaurant, Available Preferable food, Reasonable food price and Affordable transportation cost were considered as leading variables. It is also found that archaeological attraction is the prime factor that correlated with variables. The other factors are safety-security, favorable environment, food attraction and cost. It was observed from the tourism and satisfaction related literature if visitors get the expected services after visiting any destination, they become highly satisfied and have made revisit intention.

Implications of the Research Findings
This study has been focused on identification of different factors and variables influencing visitor satisfaction. Accordingly, the managerial implications of this study are more focused on a discussion of this finding, rather than focusing on a discussion of the influence of the perceived tourism development. The research findings may help tourism planners, developers and policy makers to understand what the key tourism players (visitors) prefer to develop in tourism attractions/resources and to plan and implement successful competitive strategies. The results are likely to help tourism stakeholders and marketers to collect information and plan appropriate competitive strategies based on the mentioned five factors, which they prefer to develop. The Archeological attraction, safetysecurity, favorable environment, local food attraction and cost of services might be recommended as specific marketing plans for destination competitive strategies. These marketing strategies may enable tourism destinations to achieve a maximum correlation with visitors' demand to meet their wants and needs. However the archaeological tourism is little bit different from general tourism, the managers will get proper idea from this study about the way to satisfy visitors of archaeological tourism. More specific implication, this study may be helpful to the management authority of Paharpur Buddha Vihara to take decision according to the identifying factors which affect visitor satisfaction. This study will also helpful to rethink them to formulate future plan for the archaeological sites. Tourism industry will get some idea relevant to visitor satisfaction towards archaeological tourism and it will be helpful for them to conduct tourism business. Again, students may get idea from the study about systematic quantitative analysis and decision making.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
The main objective of this study was to identify factors influencing visitor satisfaction. In order to achieve the study objective, the study explores and adopts 5 exploratory factors. These are Archeological attraction, safety-security, favorable environment, Local food attraction and cost of services. The factors are highly related with some influential variables like Attractive archaeological symbol, Neat and clean destination, Up to mark security of the destination, Sound ,noiseless &quite place, Available local foods at the restaurant, and Reasonable food price. Intensive literature review and field study help to explore the factors and variables. The factor archaeological attraction is considered as the most influential factor by the visitors of Paharpur Buddha Vihara. The most attractive factors of any archaeological sites are its history, sophisticated design and architectural beauty. The Vihara consists all of these. So the authority should preserve different archaeological sites for attracting visitor. Besides safety security must be considered as the most influential factor. Law enforces agencies should present and run campaign after some interval which will increase visitor's confidence level. Cost of services should make reasonable for the visitors.
As maximum visitors of this destination are the students, different discount or incentives may motivate them to visit such type of destinations. Favorable environment makes favorability to tourism. As earlier mentioned, visitors spend for mental peace. Thus they like peaceful, noiseless, calm environment. So destination authority should be concern making environment favorable to the visitors. The local transportation facilities and cost should be developed and make safe. For developing the tourism industry in Bangladesh, the authority should increase the number of offers and widen the extent of services factors for the visitors. Tour operators both in private and public sectors should offer alternative packages for tour programs. The tourism development related people should arrange some tourism components based on nature, traditions and culture. Above all, the specific factors that explored through literature review and field study must be managed by the destination operators for highest visitor satisfaction.

Limitations and further Research
This study can be considered as a useful information and guidance for tourism related decisions. However the research has some limitations.