The perception of tourism product quality and tourist satisfaction: the case of polish tourists visiting Bulgaria

Maria Johann,Lina Anastassova

doi:10.54055/ejtr.v8i.153

Abstract

The article presents the results of a secondary data analysis examining Polish tourists’ perception of tourism product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels. The researchers examined data collected by Itaka travel agency regarding tourists’ satisfaction with the package holidays in Bulgaria between 2010-2013. Since the number of Polish tourists visiting Bulgaria has increased over the last years, it has been hypothesized that Bulgarian hotels offer a competitive value proposition and a very good price/quality relationship. The surveyed sample of tourists spent their summer holiday in one of 14 summer resorts located in Sunny Beach and in Golden Sands area, 4 – three-star hotels and 10 – four-star hotels and the total sample volume is 1212 tourists. The quantitative analysis of tourists’ perceptions of product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels was performed through the scale based on the evaluation of a list of the hotel attributes representing values important for tourists. The qualitative analysis was based on the tourists’ comments regarding their holiday experience in Bulgaria.

Highlights

In tourism markets with enormous competition nowadays between tourism destinations and between resort hotels inside destinations one of the most significant problems for hotel marketers is to know the attributes that determine the accommodation choice of tourists which means to know the hotelRESEARCH PAPER attributes that are perceived as most important by tourists when choosing a resort hotel
Since the number of Polish tourists visiting Bulgaria has increased over the last couple of years in average by 5-6% annually compared to the period untill 2010 (NSI, 2013), it has been hypothesized that Bulgarian hotels offer a competitive value proposition and a very good price/quality relationship
The analysis presented in this study includes tourists evaluations with regard to their summer holidays in Bulgaria in three and four-star hotels

Summary

Introduction

In tourism markets with enormous competition nowadays between tourism destinations and between resort hotels inside destinations one of the most significant problems for hotel marketers is to know the attributes that determine the accommodation choice of tourists which means to know the hotelRESEARCH PAPER attributes that are perceived as most important by tourists when choosing a resort hotel. Every destination hotel is part of the overall tourism product of the destination because the overall tourism product refers to the whole holiday consisting of various components such as transportation, accommodation, meals, image etc. Research and studies often link this set of destination product components to tourist quality perception (Blazquesz, Molina & Esteban, 2012). The micro level variables represent tourists’ considerations of various product components related to their experience of a specific company such as personnel, information and product variety (Mehmetoglu & Normann, 2013). Empirical research in this subject area enables hotel marketers and managers to develop a relevant product policy by eliminating gaps between customer expectations and product quality perception

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