Using the principal component analysis for evaluating the quality of a tourist destination

Abstract

The article deals with problems concerning evaluating the quality of a tourist destination. A tourist destination is a conjunction of products, services, natural resources, culture resources, local people, artificially created attractions and information, due to which it is able to attract a number of visitors. The visitors' satisfaction with a destination depends on the quality of their overall experience that is created on the basis of the cooperation of all actors in tourism in the given area - these are local inhabitants, service providers, public administration workers and destination management. The quality of services is a component of consumer satisfaction and so it is evaluated according to the level of a customer's satisfaction. Sustainable development and the quality of natural environment are parts of the destination quality, too. When evaluating quality it is necessary to define a set of factors (variables) that can be quantified and then to determine the quality of a destination.The objective of the paper is to create a model for evaluating the quality of a destination on the basis of analysing the importance of individual factors (variables) concerning the quality of a destination. The importance of these factors was determined by relevant responders during a questionnaire survey. For reducing the original number of twenty dependant variables the multidimensional statistical method of analysing the principal components was used. On the basis of similarities in evaluation this method supported clusters of factors - relative dimensions of the quality of a destination. Subsequently a methodology was formulated to evaluate the quality of a destination according to four newly-defined dimensions of quality: Attractions, Services, Marketing management, Sustainability and cooperation.