Invisible but relevant? Perceived sustainability, service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty in municipal sports centres

Abstract

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important in the management of municipal sports services. However, its integration as an explicit component of users’ perceived service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty remains limited. In this study, responses from 207 adult users of municipal sports services in a municipality within the Campo de Turia region (Valencia) were analyzed. The participants completed an online questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale to assess service quality, perceived sustainability, overall satisfaction, and future intentions. Descriptive analyses, mean comparison tests by gender and age group, Pearson correlations, and a linear regression model were applied to determine the contribution of quality and sustainability to satisfaction. The results indicate high perceived service quality, with particularly high scores in interactions with technical staff and in the content of the activities, compared with more moderate assessments of changing rooms and certain environmental conditions, which are identified as areas for improvement. There is a moderate-level perception of sustainability; some environmental practices, such as waste management, are recognized, but the presence of sustainable products and specific information about environmental care are scarcely visible. The correlations show positive and significant relationships among all variables, especially between perceived service quality and satisfaction and between satisfaction and future intentions. The regression explains 64% of the variance in satisfaction, identifying overall quality as the main predictor, while sustainability does not have a significant direct effect. At the sociodemographic level, no significant gender differences in service quality, sustainability, satisfaction, or future intentions are found. These variables tend to increase progressively with age, reaching their highest values among individuals over 60 years old. Overall, the findings indicate that municipal sports facilities can generate high levels of satisfaction and loyalty, even with margins for improvement in physical infrastructure and in the visibility of sustainability, as long as staff relationships and the organization of activities align with users’ expectations. The study also underscores the need to make sustainability a visible and comprehensible component of the value proposition.