Rural Tourism – Evaluating the Quality of Destination

Abstract

This paper concerns the topic of rural destination quality from the viewpoint of tourism development. The research exploring crucial quality factors from the viewpoint of demand is presented. Rural tourism participants attribute the highest significance to Destination cleanliness and Sense of security. The evaluation of the importance of most research quality factors is not dependent on gender and on the contrary, the importance of 16 quality factors depends on the visitor´s age. In the case of the factor of "Friendly acceptance by the locals", the most significant influence on the visitor´s return to the destination was confirmed. On the contrary, this impact was not proven for the factor of "Level of prices of services and goods in the destination". The research and the successive factor analysis revealed 6 dimensions representing the rural destination quality: Services, Image, Transportation, Well-being, Information/Communication and Attractions/ Experiences; Well-being was identified as the most important. This was consecutively confirmed by the analysis of the quality factors' impact on the visitor´s overall satisfaction and loyalty to the destination. The research findings provide the theory with topical destination quality dimensions as well as contribute to better understanding of visitor´s behavioural mechanisms in rural areas.Key words: visitor´s perception, quality of destination, rural destination, factors of quality, dimensions of quality, IPA analysis Abstrakt: Tento příspěvek je věnován tématu kvality venkovské destinace z pohledu rozvoje cestovního ruchu. Jsou zde prezentovány výsledky výzkumu zacíleného na identifikování a prozkoumání stěžejních faktorů kvality z pohledu poptávky. Nejvyšší význam účastníci cestovního ruchu na venkově přisuzují faktorům čistoty destinace a bezpečnosti v destinaci. Hodnocení důležitosti většiny zkoumaných faktorů kvality (68 %) není závislé na pohlaví, a naopak význam 16-ti faktorů kvality je závislý na věku respondenta. U faktoru kvality "přátelské přijetí místními obyvateli" byl prokázán nejvyšší vliv na znovu návrat návštěvníka do destinace, naopak tento vliv nebyl prokázán u faktoru "cenová úroveň zboží a služeb v destinaci". Provedený výzkum a následná faktorová analýza odhalila 6 dimenzí reprezentující kvalitu venkovské destinace: služby, image, doprava, pohodlí (well-being), informace/komunikace, atraktivity/zážitky. Při posuzování významu dimenzí pro návštěvníka byla jednoznačně jako nejvýznamnější identifikována dimenze well-being, což bylo následně potvrzeno analýzou vlivu faktorů kvality na celkovou spokojenost návštěvníka v destinaci a jeho loajalitu k destinaci. Výsledky výzkumu rozšiřují teoretická východiska o hlavní dimenze kvality destinace a prohlubují poznatky spotřebitelského chování návštěvníků/účastníků cestovního ruchu ve venkovských oblastech.

Building Customer Loyalty in Rural Destinations as a Pre-Condition of Sustainable Competitiveness

“…The last dimension 3: transportation was completely removed from the final model due to its unimportance; in other words, no significant influence on satisfaction nor loyalty was revealed. This fact corresponds with the previous research of the authors [57].…”

“…This dimension has the largest impact on satisfaction and concurrently it is also the most influential in loyalty towards the destination of all the dimensions. This fact corresponds with the results mentioned by Meng et al [56]-as well as with the results of the previous research of the authors [57]-where this dimension was evaluated as the most important from the viewpoint of evaluating the destination quality factors' significance by the visitors themselves. All the relevant factors (F15, F14, F12, F13, F10) stayed in the model as significant indicators of this dimension, which proves the fact that all the factors have an important impact on creating the dimension of well-being.…”

Cultural Tourism as a Possible Driver of Rural Development in Czechia. Wine Tourism in Moravia as a Case Study

“…The research destination quality factors used in the survey were chosen on basis of authors previous empirical research (Ryglová et al, 2017; 2018) adopted with wine destination type. The primary data have been obtained by online questionnaire among Czech respondents and at the same time visitors of wine destination, where the questions regarding the satisfaction and importance of quality factors were formulated using five-point Likert scale (number five represents the highest significance/satisfaction of/with an individual factor).…”

Hybrid Conceptual Model for Assessing Quality, Production and Satisfaction (SQual4Agri), in Agricultural Production Units, in Cape Verde

“…Empirical studies carried out in various industries using SERVPERF (banks, pest control, laundry, wine tourism, fast food chain, restaurant) [60][61][62][64][65][66][67], found a superior performance in terms of satisfaction assessment than of using other service evaluation tool. Taking into consideration that SERVPREF has a reduced a number of survey itemsonly 22 items altogether-the studies have demonstrated its superiority in relation to the SERVQUA.…”