The food and beverage preferences of golf tourists visiting Turkey

uı ABSTRACT As tourism industry is in a continuous development, new tendencies occur and one is "golf tourism" which causes improvements both in increasing demands and management practices. In order to be efficient and increase the share among all golf destinations all around the world; especially lodging companies should put forward an overall product concept. It must be mentioned that, with this overall concept of "golf product"; food and beverage services have main importance on customers' occuring demand and satisfaction degree of the golf vacation. With this respect, in Turkey as an emerging golf destination, the success of the companies' mainly depends on both national and international golf tourists' meeting demands and satisfying their needs; which must be valued with great importance. There are standarts that must be taken into consideration when managing golf resorts but the supporting services such as food and beverage services' quality will be the factor mat makes difference in the whole golf product. The main question is whether the lodging companies in Turkey, take this into consideration or not. As regards, the aim of this study is to fix golf tourists' preferences on food and beverage services; with respect to their characteristics. A survey aiming to fix the choices and the profile; is carried out to 110 golf tourists visiting Belek Region who are playing golf in one of those golf clubs in Antalya. By this research it is fixed that they consider the food and beverage services of the company as the fourth important aspect when choosing a golf destination. Golf tourists put forward that, the behaviors of the food and beverage personnel, hygiene and the atmosphere of the restaurants are at most important and they prefer seated- service and buffet menu when dining.IV Golf tourists are mainly under the socio-cultural effects when choosing their meals and even though they are considered to be sportsman, they do not ask for something special for nutrition when they are on a golf vacation. As a conclusion, the results are considered carefully to give some proposals to the menu planners of lodging companies and golf clubs.