Research of the effect of tourists' Turkish cuisine image perception to revisit: The case of Antalya

In today's world, tourism is considered one of the most important economic sectors and leisure activities. Tourism plays an important role in the advancement of societies and serves as a lucrative source of income for service providers as tourists spend money to meet their needs on the go. As the demands of tourists increase, the production and presentation of goods and services also increases, which leads to an increase in production, investment and income in societies. Since food has historically been an important attraction for tourists, many destinations strive to offer special culinary experiences to tourists. It seems that creating a positive culinary image in the minds of tourists is a very important element in creating their behavior such as their intention to revisit and recommendations to others. It is generally accepted in the literature that there is a strong relationship between tourists' level of satisfaction with their dining experience during travel and their intention to revisit a destination. This study aimed to investigate the effect of tourists' perception of the image of Turkish Cuisine on their intention to revisit. Accordingly, the data of the study was obtained from the survey questions applied to foreign tourists who visited Turkey and left the country at Antalya Airport. The data obtained from the participants (n = 393) were analyzed with the SPSS program. In the analysis of the data of the research, descriptive statistics (frequency distribution, standard deviation, percentage value and arithmetic mean) were first used; Then, research questions and hypotheses were tested using t tests, ANOVA, and regression analyses. As a result of the analysis, it is understood that the participants' kitchen image perceptions differ significantly (p <0.05) according to the number of visits. Additionally, it was determined that the perceived kitchen image had a positive and significant effect on revisit intention. Keywords: TurkishCuisine, Food Image, Intention to Revisit