1PhD Scholar, Scholl of Applied Management Punjabi University, Patiala (India) 147002
2PhD Scholar, Geography and Environmental Studies Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar (Ethiopia)79
Online published on 4 August, 2018.
Tourism as an economic sector is dependent on tourists’ decisions to travel and use tourism resources. Tourists usually go to destinations with their own expectation and destination images. Tourists travel to attraction areas to meet their expectations and grab the maximum satisfaction that a destination can give. The quality of services at destinations determines tourists’ satisfaction and their intentions to come again and to recommend for friends and family. The purpose of this paper is to see the relations among destination service quality, tourist satisfaction and loyalty at Gondar and its surroundings.
A total of 150 self administered questionnaires were distributed to international tourists who took part in the 2015 epiphany celebration at Gondar and its surrounding. From the questionnaires dispatched 129 properly filled papers were used in the analysis. Principal Component Analysis was used to extract and reorganize the related variables of destination service quality attributes. As a result of the Principal Component Analysis, the 22 service quality items were regrouped in two three renamed as “modern services and facilities”, “care and empathy” and “safe transactions” based on the dominant characteristics they explain together. Tourists are found to be more attracted and satisfied with modern and up-to-date types of facilities and services for which they familiar at places of origins. Correlation analysis was again employed and the result revealed that service quality had a strong and direct bearing on tourist satisfaction and loyalty.
Service quality, tourist loyalty, Gondar, Ethiopian tourism, tourist satisfaction
