Evaluation of customer orientation with service dominant logic approach: A qualitative research on yacht management

Yacht management is a component of business that implements the concept of yacht vacation within yacht tourism, which is an important component of marine tourism. Yacht companies are service businesses that undertake the tasks of planning and organizing the yacht vacation with yacht charter solutions in line with the expectations and demands of different customer segments. The service dominant logic approach is a paradigm in marketing theory that emphasizes the basis of economic change is service. In addition, according to this approach, which emphasizes the importance of co-creation, customers and other actors create value in return for service by mutually suggesting value. From this point of view, customers are an important source of value creation for businesses. Customer orientation is a strategic orientation that adopts collecting information in order to determine the needs of the customers, analyzing the determined needs and offering solutions before the competitors. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate customer orientation with a service-dominant logic, in line with the data obtained by analyzing the marketing perspective in the context of yacht management, a service-intensive tourism sector. For this purpose, a three-stage qualitative research was developed with exploratory research design. In the study, semi-structured interview with 5 experts in the first stage, content analysis in the second stage and in the last stage, a Delphi survey was conducted with 28 experts in yacht management. As a result of the study, the customer orientation process was evaluated according to the four basic elements of the service-dominant logic approach, namely, service, resources, actors and creating value together. In addition, it has been concluded that customer-oriented behaviors in yacht management positively affect customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, service innovation and service quality.