To customer satisfaction of experiential marketingand its effect on loyalty: A research in restaurant businesses

The aim of the thesis is to try to determine the effect of experiential marketing on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Restaurants were chosen as the application area of the research. In this framework, it is aimed to determine to what extent the experiential marketing experiences of the participants who receive restaurant services throughout Turkey have an effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Survey of the literature indicates concerning that a certain number of studies have been made on the subject of the study, but it has been seen that studies on restaurants in Turkey are limited. Therefore, this study is important for future research. Quantitative research method was used in the study. An online survey was applied to the participants who received restaurant service throughout Turkey between 26 November 2021 and 15 March 2022, using the convenience sampling method. In total, 404 questionnaires were evaluated and the data were analyzed by the statistical package program. Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test, analysis of variance, factor and regression were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the study, it was determined that 59.2% of the participants who received restaurant service throughout Turkey were women, they were in different age categories. The participants in the "21-30 (31.2%)" age category were the ones with the highest participation. 47.3% of the participants who had experience in the restaurant were "undergraduate". It was determined that the participants who received restaurant service had different occupations and had "middle" and "above-middle" incomes. The ratio of the participants who receive restaurant service and those who have experienced the preferred restaurant before is 92.1%. The information sources used by the participants when choosing a restaurant are "friends (84%)" and "social media (37.8%)". It was also determined that the restaurant visited are "warm-friendly (57.8%)", "comfortable (50.4%)" and "gourmet (45.4%)". According to simple linear regression analysis to see if the participants' experiential marketing experience has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty, experiential marketing experience has been shown to increase customer satisfaction (F=72,736; p<0.05) and loyalty (F=96,231; p<0.05). It was statistically significant and the effect was positive. Additionally, according to the simple linear regression analysis conducted to determine whether the satisfaction of the participants who received restaurant service affects loyalty, it was found that the established model had a statistically significant and positive effect (F=414,568; p<0.05).