Analysis of destination quality factors effective on destination choise: Antalya case

Tourism destinations are important places in marketing tourism, where touristic products and services are provided though it is hard to manage. Destination quality is the competence of meeting the expectations of tourists from the products and services that they are offered in the destination. In this study, in analyzing factors of destination quality, we deal with factors of destination quality of Antalya. In the study, we dealt first with destination, product and service quality, factors of destination quality, destination choice and we analyzed Antalya as a tourist destination in detail. In the practical part of the study, 416 Russian and European tourists who visited Antalya and departed from Antalya Airport in July and September 2014 were surveyed by means of a questionnaire developed in accordance with the objectives of the study. The questionnaire included information about demographic characteristics of tourists, travel attitudes, level of importance they attribute to factors of destination quality, their perception of performance on Antalya destination quality factors as well as their satisfaction. Frequency, factor analysis, t-test, variance (Anova) analysis and regression analysis were used for analyzing the data. According to the prominent findings on demographic characteristics and travel attitudes, the tourists in the study were young and middle aged group, low-income group, and high level of education and were engaged in various professions. Besides, it was found that they visited Antalya for mostly coastal tourism and to do so, they considered advises of their friends, relatives and their previous experiences Importance-performance analysis was conducted for Antalya destination quality factors and their dimensions and according to the findings obtained, transportation, security and information dimensions are those to be concentrated; sea-sand-sun, sources and food and drink dimension are those to be protected; society and cost are low priority while accommodation opportunities and animation are put in excess category. In addition, significant differences were observed between demographic characteristics and travel attitudes of tourists participating in the study and the importance they attribute to destination quality and the level of performance perceived. It was found that the performance of destination quality dimensions were effective on tourist satisfaction. Keywords: Destination, Destination Choise, Destination Quality, Importance-Performance Analysis, Antalya.