The effect of cultural tourists' perceptions of experiential quality on satisfaction

The objective of this thesis is to measure the effect of cultural tourist's experiential quality perceptions on satisfaction. The sub-objectives of the study are to determine whether the experiential quality perceptions and satisfaction levels of the visitors differ according to the cultural tourist typologies. For the purpose of the study, firstly, the typologies of cultural tourists visiting Eskişehir were determined. In line with these purposes, a questionnaire was applied to domestic tourists visiting Eskişehir, which proved to be a cultural destination by being selected as the Cultural Capital of the Turkish World in 2013, and a total of 422 questionnaires were obtained. The data of the research were collected by face-to-face survey technique between July 2021 and May 2022. Confirmatory factor analysis, simple linear correlation, t-test and regression, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test the data obtained from the study. According to the findings obtained from the research, it has been determined that 41.71 percent of the cultural tourists visiting Eskişehir province are purposeful cultural tourists. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that the perception of experiential quality had a positive effect on satisfaction. In addition, a significant difference was determined between the typologies according to the findings obtained for the hypotheses of whether the perception of experiential quality and satisfaction differ according to the cultural tourist typologies, which is the other purpose of the study. It has been determined that purposive cultural tourists have higher experiential quality dimensions such as education, entertainment, aesthetics and escape sub-dimensions and satisfaction level scores compared to other cultural tourist groups.