The effect of the co-creation experience on visitors' satisfaction and revisit intention from the perspective of self-determination theory

In this dissertation, it is aimed to examine the effect of basic psychological needs, experiences, co-created experiences and satisfactions of people who visit a tourist center in person and virtually on their revisit intentions. For this purpose, firstly the scales used in this research were translated from English to Turkish and from Turkish to English for language compatibility then scales adapted and their validity and reliability were ensured. The sample of the research consisted of 199 participants visiting Eskişehir Bilim Deney Merkezi (Eskisehir Science Experiment Center) in person and 2454 participants visiting the virtual museum of Anadolu Üniversitesi Türk Dünyası Bilim Kültür ve Sanat Merkezi (Eskisehir Anadolu University Research Center for the Turkish World). The data collected face-to-face and via online questionnaires from two different samples at different times were analyzed separately through the same model. According to the results of explanatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural model analysis and multi-group analysis, it was determined that the proposed model explained 70.5% of the revisit intention towards a tourist center and 89.2% of the revisit intention towards a virtual center. It was observed that the basic psychological needs of the visitors had a direct and positive effect on their experiences, their co-creation experiences and their satisfaction, and also their satisfaction on their re-visit intentions. With these two surveys, it was determined that the most influential factor on revisit intentions of the participants was satisfaction. Unlike previous research, in this dissertation it was revealed that the basic psychological needs of the visitors directly and positively affect their co-created experiences during their virtual museum visits, while their basic psychological needs affect their co-created experiences through their in-person visits to a tourist center. In line with the results obtained from the study, suggestions were offered to tourism marketing researchers and service providers offering tourism experiences.