Preferences of university students for places that serve different catering services on the campus and determining the factors that affect them

This research was conducted to determine the preferences of students for four different catering businesses located on the Hasan Kalyoncu University campus and the factors that affect them. A total of 517 students participated in the research, 278 of which were from the School of Health Sciences and 239 were from the Engineering Faculty. Catering businesses on campus were assessed by the students with a score of 1 to 4 on a variety of catering quality criteria which grouped under five key factors: food and beverages, restaurant characteristics, service quality, hygiene and price. The cafeteria received the highest score from each factor (Factor 1 X=2.14±0.92, Factor 2: X=1.89±0.83, Factor 3: X=2.08±1.01, Factor 4: X=2.20±1.08, Factor 5: X=2.00±1.03). The mean total scores of all the factors of the catering businesses are as follows: cafeteria (X=2.00 ± 1.03), canteen (X=1.97 ± 0.80), special café (X=1.83 ± 0.82) and special restaurant (X=1.82 ± 0.89). The difference between the results was significant (p <0.01). The "quality of service evaluation form for catering" was applied to the businesses by the researcher. The scores of the catering businesses over 4 are in the form of cafeteria (3.37), canteen (3.03), private café (2.88) and private restaurant (2.55) respectively. The evaluation results of the students were compared with the evaluation results of the researcher. In both cases, the ranking of the points was the same and there was a meaningful relationship between the results (p <0.01). The result of this study is that students' catering preference and service quality evaluation results are in parallel with the results obtained by the researcher.