Examination of customer complaints in thermal tourism enterprises by content analysis method: An application in the Aegean Region

The aim of this study is to investigate the most common complaints of customers staying in thermal hotels and to determine under which categories customer complaints are gathered. Thus, it is aimed to develop suggestions to eliminate the complaints of customers who prefer thermal hotels. In the research, document analysis method was used as a data collection tool. 3522 complaints made on TripAdvisor.com, belonging to 57 accommodation businesses operating in 4 different provinces in the Aegean Region within the scope of the research, were examined. Nvivo 10.0 qualitative data analysis program was used for the analysis of the complaints. As a result of the research, 5 main themes and 17 sub-themes emerged. Main themes; Complaints about the rooms, complaints about the facility, complaints about the staff, complaints about the pool-hamam and thermal water, and complaints about the food and beverage and the menu are grouped as. It was found that the main theme that the customers complained the most was the theme of complaints about the personnel. This main theme is followed by complaints about eating and drinking. It was concluded that the main theme with the least complaints was the complaints about the facility.