Evaluation of the Perception of Foreign Tourists About the Service Quality of the Accommodation Establishments in Turkey

Abstract

One of the best and the most important ways of increasing tourism income of our country is to supply guest satisfaction by maintaining service quality always high thereby cause the guests to visit our country again and also cause them to recommend Turkey to their friends and relatives. Tourism income is one of the most important revenue items of Turkey. When it is considered as business oriented, every tourist that left tourist facility in satisfaction means potentially new guests and a new means of marketing. In today’s world, both positive and negative remarks about tourist facility on internet affect guest decisions of buying a holiday. Possibilities of revealing those remarks freely make guest satisfaction more and more important. While satisfied guests’ remarks affect the image of tourist facility in positive ways, unsatisfied guests’ negative remarks would affect the image of the facility negatively. Service quality as the most important side of guest satisfaction is vital for tourist facilities and tourism income of the country. This survey which aims to assess the service quality perception of the foreign tourists was applied to 462 foreign tourists who accommodated in hotels in Antalya, Mugla, İstanbul and Aydın regions that foreign tourists mostly prefer to accommodate in Turkey. The difference between the expectations of the tourists before the accommodation and their perception after the accommodation were evaluated. The data were gotten only from 462 of the foreign tourists that visited Turkey. Sample group consist of German, British, Russian and Dutch tourists that constitute 42% of all foreign tourists of Turkey and comes within the first four. The data that obtained from the survey were transferred to the computer and various statistical analyses were applied to that data bank. When the expectation and perception arithmetic average is evaluated, it is seen that highest arithmetic average of expectation is among Dutch tourists and lowest is among German tourists while the highest arithmetic average of perception is among Russian tourists and lowest among British tourists. On the other hand, when the difference between arithmetic average of expectation and arithmetic average of perception is taken in the consideration, it is seen that the lowest difference is among German tourists and the highest difference is among Dutch tourists. Within the light of those results it can be seen that there is a meaningful difference between the expected service quality and perceived service quality of the tourists according to their nationality.