The importance of information in the destination on the levels of tourist satisfaction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there was an association between the tourist circuits being evaluated - in many respects, such as accommodation, public cleaning, public transportation, gastronomy, among others - and the quality of information available to the tourists. The researchers used a principal component analysis (PCA) on data which was based on the tourist demand survey of 2011. This survey was conducted by the Department of Tourism with 9,318 tourists in 29 tourist circuits in the state of Minas Gerais (Brazil). Each tourist circuit had a quantity of cities in the region with the same cultural, social and economic affinities and these united in order to organise and develop their regional tourism in a sustainable way. The results have indicated that the best tourist circuits that were evaluated received higher scores on the variables that were related to information than did the worst tourist circuits that were evaluated. These results have shown the importance of information in the tourist destination as being an essential element and not only complementary to tourist satisfaction.