Perception of national and foreign tourists of the service in restaurants from Todos Santos Magical Town, Mexico

Abstract

The magic town of Todos Santos is a strategic site for local development and is dependent on the tourist economy driven by national and foreign visitors. Restaurants in Todos Santos obtain raw materials locally to provide quality products for different food specialties. The quality of service (SQ) and customer satisfaction (CS) are two constructs that when evaluated are critical for any market. In this study, the perception and relationship between SQ and SC in the different restaurant specialties is evaluated, contrasting the perception between national and foreign tourists segments. Using 162 surveys, the constructs were evaluated using five dimensions: installations, accessibility, human capital, atmosphere, and food, where hypothetically food and human capital should be the main determinant. The results suggest that SQ and CS are perceived similarly between both segments, except in the Italian specialty in all its dimensions, and partially in Japanese. The food dimension was the highest value on average however, it was not significantly different from the rest of the dimensions. The SQ had a moderate positive impact on CS given the perception of diners by segment based on correlation analysis, the causal effect of which must be determined with detail.