Investigation of service quality in forest recreation areas from visitors' perspective

One of the important expectations of the society from forest resources is outdoor recreation. Outdoor recreation activities are carried out in areas created for these purposes. One of these areas is forest parks. In this study, the quality of the service provided in Boğazköy Forest Park in Istanbul province was measured from the visitor's perspective. Service quality expectations and perceived service quality were determined with the ECOSERV scale. A total of 385 visitors were surveyed. According to the study results, the eco-tangibles dimension within the scope of service quality did not meet the high level of expectations. In addition, although the dimensions of responsiveness, reliability, empathy and assurance did not fully meet the expectations, the expectation-perception values were close to each other and the differences between them were not found to be statistically significant. Only the physical dimension had a perception above expectations.