Students? perceptions towards the education implemented at higher schools on tourism guidance

The objective of this study is to determine the perception level of the students at higher schools offering tourism guidance programs. To serve this purpose, SERVPERF scale, also known as the perception part of the SERVQUAL scale, was implemented. The number of the participants (n) was found out to be 960, despite the fact that full population was indented to be covered in the study. The study covered in total 15 faculties, higher schools and vocational higher schools offering programs on tourism guidance. A preliminary study was conducted for the scale employed in the study and of the 30 items, 8 items were taken out due to low factor loadings below 0.50. The total explained variance was found out to be 58.15% and the result of the Kaiser-Meyer-Ohlin (KMO) test to determine the sample adequacy was found to be 0.841 and Cronbach Alpha coefficient was more than 0.90.The scale employed in the study is comprised of 5 dimensions, which are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. The results of the study suggest that for empathy dimension, the average scores in terms of gender for male was 12.134, while it is 11.497 for females and there is a statistically significant relationship between the averages (P < 0.05). In terms of the duration of education, all the sub-hypotheses that there is a relation between duration of education and average scores of service quality dimensions were accepted. In terms of scholarship status, there found to be no statistically significant difference in average scores of service quality dimensions (P > 0.05). When it comes to educational type, there found to be statistically significant relationship in the dimension of ?reliability? (P <0.01), and ?responsiveness? (P < 0.05) in terms of average scores of service quality dimensions.As for the score type of entrance examination, the result of the ANOVA test suggests the difference for score types among the groups with reference to the average score for ?tangibles? was found out to be statistically significant (P < 0.01).In this regard, one of the striking findings of the study is that, as is seen in the multi dimensional scaling part, there is a huge gap in terms of the quality dimensions between vocational higher schools and faculties and higher schools. The perception level for those at vocational higher schools is relatively lower than those at schools offering four years of education. The result of the analyses performed might suggest some insights for the administrators in terms of planning, decision making and process improvement.The dimensions suggested in the study cover the students at higher education institutions offering programs on tourism guidance. Studies to be conducted in the future might yield some important perspectives and findings if the scope of the study is expanded to sectoral representatives in tourism, graduates and prospective institution likely to offer employment opportunities for those studying tourism guidance.