Other tourists as a part of tourism product

In tourism services contexts, tourists receive a service simultaneously with other tourists as they consume the service and share the same service environment. Other tourists in the service environment might have positive and negative impacts on a tourist's service experience. Other tourists may disrupt a tourist's service experience by some inappropriate behaviors or improve the same experience by for example offering assistance. This may also affect the subsequent behavioral intentions of the tourist. Therefore, understanding the nature of interactions between tourists are important for both tourism researchers and practitioners. However, there are very limited studies on interactions between tourists in the literature. Therefore, this study was performed in order to explore factors affecting the interactions between tourists, and how these interactions occur at what levels and in which places. The study also explores situations that cause satisfaction and disturbance during interactions with other tourists. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty three foreign tourists visiting Istanbul in order to reveal tourists' perspectives on interactions with other tourists. In order to ensure the reliability and validity of the research, data triangulation technique was used and a focus group interview was employed with seven tourist guides. The findings revealed that the interactions between tourists occur directly and indirectly. Direct interactions are composed of spontaneous, superficial and close interactions. Interactions usually occur in service and public areas. Friendly, considerate, hostile, inconsiderate and rude, illegal and prohibited, offensive, disgusting behaviors of other tourists' caused either satisfaction or disturbance of tourists, some cultural, personal and situational factors also affect interactions between tourists. Key Words: other customers, costomer to customer intraction, other tourists, tourist to tourist interaction.