This study aims to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of thermal tourism through the opinions of tourism students. Students getting tourism education is the population of this study. A questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument, and 1135 students in various levels of tourism departments participated in this study. According to the results, students see the existence of a university as the strength and non-existence of an airport as the weakness of Afyonkarahisar. Besides, they think that thermal tourism's being done during the year is the opportunity and construction problems' negative effects on tourism are the threats.
The aim of the present study is to determine the important criteria in the planning of trailer parks (caravan parks) in rural destinations based on expert opinions. The present research is an exploratory study, originated from the need to deeply understand and examine a social phenomenon. Delphi technique was used in systematically determining the trailer park criteria based on the consensus reached through expert opinions. Face-to-face interviews were conducted during the first round of the research, in which 19 experts were consulted, and expert evaluation forms were used in the second and third rounds. The main criteria determined for trailer parks were the environmental and natural, recreation activities, recreational elements and the socio-cultural. Based on the outcomes of the present study, it was observed that socio-cultural stood out as a new factor, whereas transport and accessibility were not among the trailer parks criteria. The present study focused on the travel requirements of short-term caravanners (trailer campers) and the basic services that should be provided in trailer camps. In this respect, the present research provides the basic criteria necessitated by trailers in rural destinations, moreover, defines the key criteria that separate trailer parks from campgrounds.
It is an indisputable fact that social media technology has been changing the way of consumers' information production and knowledge acquisition patterns in terms of their consumptions. One of the most essential components of social media is customer reviews. In tourism field, there are different types of hotel review sites. The purpose of this research is to examine the hotels' online review performance in the top two review sites (Booking and TripAdvisor) comparatively. The data were collected electronically from the two review sites about 82 hotels located in Ankara and 59 hotels located in Izmir. These total 141 hotels were selected randomly among the ones which are mutually listed in both Booking and TripAdvisor. The findings show that there is a statistically significant difference between TripAdvisor and booking based on the number of hotel reviews and most of the review take place on Booking. Besides, it is revealed that big-scale hotels are better at managing online review sites rather than the small and mid-scale hotels. Another interesting result of this research is that hotel guests dominantly share reviews for showing their satisfaction rather than their dissatisfaction. In accordance with the results obtained from the research, some suggestions are made for researchers and hotel marketers.
Purpose – In recent years, as other sectors, there is an increasing trend of competition in thermal hotel sector. The aim of this study is to determine the importance of the factors on thermal hotel location via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The study is conducted in one of the most famous thermal cities, Afyonkarahisar-Turkey. Methodology – AHP is used to determine the best location among all alternative locations. Findings – According to the results of AHP, Environmental Factors are found to be the most important factor in determining the location of the thermal hotel. The other factors according to their importance are; Features of the Construction, Costs of Investment, Location of the Construction, Competitive Factors and Demographic Structures respectively. Within Environmental Factors, the sub-factor Closeness to Thermal Water was found to be the most important. Value/originality – Determination of the location of a new hotel is very important for thermal tourism investors and also it is one of the most difficult factors for them. While they determine the most suitable location, they have to think about different criteria and all other alternatives. Other factors like features of the construction, environmental factors, competitive factors and demographic structures are almost as important as the location of the hotel which also has some sub factors. This study focused on how to determine the best hotel location via AHP.
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