TO MEASURE SATISFACTION OF TOURISTS VISITING THE WORLD HERITAGE SITE OF AJANTA CAVES

To create effective marketing strategies for Heritage Destination in the tourism industry, an in depth knowledge of tourists is crucial. The aim of this study is to measure tourist satisfaction of the highly trafficked destination of the World Heritage Site of Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad (Maharashtra, India). Primary data was collected from 100 tourists (foreign & domestic tourists) visited Ajanta caves in the month of January 2020 using questionnaire. Data Analysis was done by using independent sample t-test and descriptive statistics. The findings of the study suggested that tourists were strongly satisfied with the appealing monument, facilities at the monument, scenic beauty of Ajanta caves and conservation of the monument. On the contrary tourists were let down with the accessibility & connectivity. It was also observed that there is no significant difference between satisfaction of foreign tourists and domestic tourists. Further researcher has come up with the suggestions for the destination planners and promoters to improve tourists footfall at the destination.

To create effective marketing strategies for Heritage Destination in the tourism industry, an in depth knowledge of tourists is crucial. The aim of this study is to measure tourist satisfaction of the highly trafficked destination of the World Heritage Site of Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad (Maharashtra, India). Primary data was collected from 100 tourists (foreign & domestic tourists) visited Ajanta caves in the month of January 2020 using questionnaire. Data Analysis was done by using independent sample t-test and descriptive statistics. The findings of the study suggested that tourists were strongly satisfied with the appealing monument, facilities at the monument, scenic beauty of Ajanta caves and conservation of the monument. On the contrary tourists were let down with the accessibility & connectivity. It was also observed that there is no significant difference between satisfaction of foreign tourists and domestic tourists. Further researcher has come up with the suggestions for the destination planners and promoters to improve tourists footfall at the destination.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
Ajanta Caves are one of the major tourist attractions in the world and since 1983 a UNESCO world Heritage site located in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra State in India. After years of neglect and desertion, John Smith, a member of the British hunting party in 1819CE had accidentally discovered Ajanta Caves. With growing popularity within a few years of its rediscovery the caves became famous for their fascinating setting, extraordinary architecture and especially their exceptional unique paintings.
The site presents a cluster of 32 rock cut Buddhist caves, the caves are chronologically divided into two phases that is the early Buddhist caves of 2nd century BCE to 1st century CE and the Mahayana caves dating to 5th century CE. Among the early caves, 9 and 10 are ‗chaityas' which include the earliest known remnants of paintings in the history of India while 8, 12, 13, and 15A are ‗viharas'. Caves 19,26 and 29 are chaityas of the Mahayana period and all the other caves are viharas. Majority of the caves are the finest surviving example of ancient Indian wall-painting. On the other hand in bright and warm colours, the murals in these caves portray Buddha's past lives and rebirths along with rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India.

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The study of customer satisfaction in tourism began in the year 1960's (Wang et al., 2009). Literally the meaning of satisfaction is vague because there is no universal scale to estimate the consumer satisfaction (Rahman & Shil, 2012). Further heritage tourism and its significance have been appreciated across the world in recent times, and its many-fold benefits have been realized. Like other sections of the tourism industry, it offers the possibility for several economic and civic benefits in the attraction areas by promoting visits to monuments and providing all necessary infrastructures for its support. Additionally, it plays a crucial role in building identification of a site or area as of historical or cultural importance not only among the residents of the region but also among tourists visiting the place. It strengthens citizenship values, builds community pride, and improves quality of life. Thereby paves way for its preservation in the future (ASI, 2014; AUCTUS_ADVISORS, 2019; Green, 2010; Thomas, 2010).
However a lot of work has been done on the World Heritage Site of Ajanta Caves, no systematic attempt has been made to study tourist's satisfaction. Therefore the present research paper aimed to measure tourist's satisfaction at the World Heritage sites of Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, India.

Review of Literature:-Heritage Tourism:
Heritage tourism is defined as -travelling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past.‖ It is also known by the names of cultural tourism or cultural heritage tourism (AUCTUS_ADVISORS, 2019).
Heritage also includes socially recognized material and cultural wealth kept by society for maintenance of social and ethnic identity and also for transfer to the succeeding generations (Ismagilova et al., 2015). These heritage sites are products, or perhaps constructions of history, which owe distinctiveness to the past (Thomas, 2010).
One important study on the aspect of heritage tourism and tourist satisfaction was conducted by Ghosh & Sofique (2012) at Kolkata, West Bengal.
Further, Huh, Uysal, & Mccleary (2006) identified that recent studies of cultural/heritage tourism have focused on identifying the characteristics, development, and management of cultural/heritage tourism, as well as on investigating demographic and travel behaviour characteristics of tourists who visit cultural/heritage destinations. The demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioural characteristics of tourists are important factors when the researcher analyzes satisfaction with cultural/heritage destinations. The findings indicated that there was a significant relationship between destination attributes and overall satisfaction with the cultural/heritage experience. However, there have been few studies that identify expectations of and satisfaction with cultural/heritage destination attributes, the relationship between cultural/heritage destination attributes and satisfaction, and market segmentation for cultural/heritage tourism.

Tourist satisfaction:
A crucial element of successful destination marketing is tourist satisfaction, which influences the choice of destination and the decision to return (Yoon & Usyal, 2005).
The subject of Customer satisfaction has been of discussions in marketing and tourism literature since long-time and it has been defined in various ways (Prayag, 2008).

Importance of Tourist satisfaction:
Maintaining and measuring tourist satisfaction is one of the fundamental challenges of tourism management and planning of marketable tourism products and services for destinations (Mohamad & Izzati, 2014;Yoon & Usyal, 2005).
Enhanced tourist satisfaction may lead to increased revenues and profits for service providers (Dmitrovic et al., 2009).
Further, it is considered to be one of the most important outcomes of all marketing activities, linking the processes of purchasing and consumption with post-purchase phenomena (Kandampully & Suharanto, 2000). Satisfaction helps to create, develop, and maintain a favourable publicity and goodwill about a tourist destination or a resort. Therefore, tourism and hospitality organizations need to pay more attention in this regard (Gnanapala, 2016).
In addition, Dmitrovic et al. (2009) mentioned specifically that enhancing customer satisfaction should be one of a DMO's primary functions and a prerequisite for the strategy development leading to a destination's enhanced attractiveness and its competitive positioning. Moreover, they added that monitoring of tourist satisfaction is a continuous process which provides inputs for a trend analysis and strategic decision making. The major indicators of the satisfaction are behavioural intentions: revisit intentions, word-of-mouth and willingness to pay. The main factors influencing satisfaction include:, motivations, experiences from the visit, benefits and education (Nowacki, 2013).
Another attempt to measure the satisfaction level of tourists in Kashmir Valley was carried out by Bhat & Qadir (2013). They employed a performance based approach (SERVPERF) of service quality for measuring satisfaction. Outcome of the study found that the tourists were satisfied and intended to return to the destination. They suggested providing some attractive services to exceed their expectations.
Hence Maharashtra being a leading tourism state in India, no systematic attempt has been made to measure satisfaction of tourists visiting the world heritage site of Ajanta Caves. Thus this is a sincere attempt to fill the research gap by studying tourist's satisfaction. The hypothesis of the study is there is no significant difference between satisfaction of foreign tourists and domestic tourists.

Research Methodology:-
The objective of this research paper is to measure tourist's satisfaction of the World Heritage sites of Ajanta caves. Primary data was collected from 100 tourists (foreign tourists & domestic tourists) who visited Ajanta caves in the month of October 2019; questionnaire was used as a research tool. The first part of the questionnaire included 29 attributes of tourist's satisfaction and the second part included demographic profile of the respondents at the sample destination. Each item in the scale was subjected to a 5point likert scale (Poor=1, Unsatisfactory=2, Can't say=3, Good=4, Excellent=5) for measuring Tourist satisfaction.
The face validity of the construct was tested with help of eight tourism experts and tourism researchers. They were asked for their opinion on the suitability of the satisfaction attributes. To resolve the ambiguity raised by the experts about a few word and attributes, some of them were replaced and for few of them proper explanation was provided. Thus face validity of the construct was deemed satisfactory.
Additionally, Cronbach's Alpha test was used to test the reliability. For this 60 responses of tourists were collected from the pilot survey at Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra. The result of Cronbach's Alpha test produced the value o f 0.956 (>.7) for satisfaction attributes which indicated strong reliability of the scale.

Data Analysis:
Initially descriptive statistics was applied to study the mean value of satisfaction of foreign tourists and domestic tourists (  Through the analysis, it was observed that tourists were overwhelmed by the highly appealing monument, scenic beauty, architectural beauty, overall tourist's satisfaction, caves visitor orientation centre and cultural experience, while dissatisfaction mean value was observed with respect to the attributes such as shopping, connectivity, availability of authorised tour operators, hygiene at wayside restaurants, general cleanliness, approved tourists guides, drinking water facility, availability of recreation and entertainment facilities, telephone/mobile and bank/ATM facilities. To conclude overall tourist's satisfaction achieved the mean value of 4.15 (Indian) and 4.39 (Foreign) which reflected satisfaction of the optimistic tourists. Secondly Independent sample T-Test was applied to study the significant difference between satisfaction of foreign tourists and domestic tourists using SPSS (Table no 2). The p value is less than 0.05 only for 1 variable namely conservation of heritage site that is .028 for equal variance assumed and .024 for equal variance not assumed.
Therefore null hypothesis is rejected only for 1 variable that is conservation of heritage site and alternate hypothesis is accepted for remaining 28 variables as the p value is more than 0.05.

Conclusion and Suggestions:-
To create a fulfilling heritage experience, the results of this research relate to the planning and management of the heritage tourism destinations. Even though there is tourist's satisfaction at the caves, monitoring of tourist's 146 satisfaction should be performed on a continuous basis. Thus the results of the research study indicated that tourist's are generally satisfied with their visit to the caves.
Moreover tourists were overwhelmed by the highly appealing monument, scenic beauty, architectural beauty, overall tourist's satisfaction, caves visitor orientation centre and cultural experience.
Other than that tourism operators at Ajanta Caves should continue to upgrade the accommodation and surrounding environment to reach to the destination and some respondents recommended that bigger or clearer signage at the roadside and at the destination should be made visible in the future.
It was also notable that the majority of the respondents were not content with the cleanliness of public utilities. Therefore having toilets tidy is of great importance.
However the lowest level of satisfaction mean value was observed in both domestic and foreign tourists with respect to the attributes such as shopping, connectivity, availability of authorised tour operators, hygiene at wayside restaurants, general cleanliness, approved tourists guides, drinking water facility, availability of recreation and entertainment facilities, telephone/mobile and bank/ATM facilities.
Many respondents also suggested that connectivity was the major issue, however this issue needed to be taken into consideration by the destination managers to revamp overall tourist's satisfaction and should pay higher attention to enhancing their services and facilities which were adversely evaluated in this research study.
On the other hand this research has some limitations about the small sample size and the uneven footfall of tourists visiting Ajanta caves due to the seasonality which may have significant impact on the findings.