Explanatory Factor Analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyse the extent in which factors related to opportunities influence consumers’ decisions when choosing a recreation provider. In the study, recreation providers are considered all enterprises specialised in providing artistic, cultural, sporting and entertainment services, addressing to a local paying clientele. The study was conducted on a number of 221 persons aged between 14 and 61 years old residing in urban areas from Romania. Twelve factors of influence to the decision-making process grouped four categories have been assessed: location-related factors (proximity to home or workplace, ease of access), service-related factors (quality, price, novelty, personnel), peer-related factors (recommendations, peers’

Survey deployment and data collection;
2. Explanatory factor analysis on the collected data;
3. Confirmatory factor analysis and development of the conceptual model;
4. Descriptive analysis of the factors.
The survey was based on a questionnaire divided into five sections. The first four sections concerned the quantification of the influence of each factor in the process of choosing a recreation provider. Each section had the same format and content and referred, in order, to the four following recreational activity groups: sporting, entertainment, artistic, and cultural.
Respondents were asked to note on a Likert 7-point scale from 1 “Not important at all” to 7 “Very important” the measure in which their decision when opting for a recreation provider is influenced by the following factors:
• Proximity to home, workplace, and means of transportation stops;
• Price, quality, and novelty of services;
• Personnel qualification;
• Mass-media promotion of the services;
• Peer recommendations;
• Preferences of the people with whom they participate;
• Preferences of the people for whom they

Table 3 shows the results of the descriptive analysis. When interpreting the results, be advised that the mean can take values between 1 and 7, where proximity to 1 indicates lack of importance and proximity to 7 denotes a high importance attributed. Please note that in the analysis of the last factor - Possibility of parent-children activities, the sample size has been reduced to only those respondents who declared having children in the demographic questions