Investigating the Existing Level of Tourists’ Destination Satisfaction; A Case of Tourists’ Travel Experience in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Tourists‟ designation satisfaction on destination attributes plays an important role in marketing tourism products and services. Therefore, determinants of tourists‟ destination satisfaction are an ongoing debate in academic literature since destination attributes available in different destinations are heterogeneous. Thus, the objective of this research is to provide empirical evidence on tourists‟ existing level of satisfaction on destination attributes in Sri Lanka. The study applies an empirical model with five destination attributes; Destination attractions, Food & Beverage services, Tourism price level, hospitality, Political and Social factors to determine tourists‟ destination satisfaction in Sri Lanka. Judgmental sampling technique was utilized to select 251 tourists from seven countries who had recently visited Colombo, Galle and Kandy locations in Sri Lanka. Data were collected via a researcher administrated questionnaire. One sample T test, Mean scores and ANOVA were used to analyze the tourist destination satisfaction. Analysis involved statistical methods such as reliability and validity tests. The results revealed that the tourists are moderately and highly satisfied with destination attributes; destination attractions, tourism price level and food & beverage services, hospitality and social and political factors in terms of the tourists‟ country of origin. Chinese tourists were more disappointed with destination attractions, food & services, price levels and hospitality than tourists‟ from other countries. The implications were that tourists who visited Sri Lanka were satisfied with the five attributes used for this study and tourists‟ satisfaction with destination attributes has an impact of their origin. Therefore, tourism authorities have to strategically identify which factors are seeked by tourists in terms of their origin and improve them.