TURİSTİK TATMİNİN DESTİNASYON İMAJI VE SUBJEKTİF BİLGİ ARACILIĞIYLA AĞIZDAN AĞIZA PAZARLAMA ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİLERİNİN YAPISAL EŞİTLİK MODELİ İLE İNCELENMESİ

Consumer satisfaction is important in terms of companies and organizations, but it is also one of the essential elements of modern marketing approach. Consumer satisfaction is not only the crucial factor for success in today’s competitive business environment, but also it is a primary element regarding the individuals’ buying decisions. The influence of satisfaction has been studied widely in terms of various aspects of the subject and in different research areas. When the tourism industry is examined, it is also affecting the consumer’s destination choices. Thus, it is one of the fundamental factors of the tourists’ destination choices and destination marketing. It is foreseen that if an individual has a pleasant experience during her/his visit to the destination, the image in her/his mind about the destination could change in positively. Hence, this may affect the tendency of individuals to share their experiences. The domain of this research for Edirne, which has been hosted by a growing tourist interest in recent years with its cultural and historical richness is to analyze the effect of tourists’ satisfaction on the subjective information about the destination, for destination image and word-of-mouth (WOM). A research model was suggested in which six hypotheses were developed. For this aim, a total of 639 valid surveys were obtained with a study on tourists visiting Edirne at least once for touristic purpose and the data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM). As a result, it was seen that the satisfaction of tourists’ visits has an effect on Edirne image and their recommendation behaviors. However, it is essential to convey the unique texture of the city and the cultural richness in an efficient manner, to position the city as an attractive destination in a cultural and historical sense for the tourists visiting Edirne. The focus of their visit should be directed not only to the traditional tourist attractions of Edirne but also to the different cultural riches of Edirne, and to enable tourists to experience the city’s cultural diversity. This approach could make the visitors’ experience more unique. It can enable people to differentiate and authenticate Edirne’s experiences and subjective knowledge about the city. Therefore, it is foreseen that the levels of satisfaction will rise and the image of Edirne in mind will shape in the positive direction. When the demographic characteristics of the survey participants are considered, it is seen that the tourists visiting Edirne are mainly consisting of people who are in the generation Y (1980-1994). Considering the influence of the word-of-mouth on the consumers, the tendency of the individuals who make a touristic visit to the city of Edirne for recommending behavior has great importance regarding destination marketing and this finding corroborate to the literature on the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) on people in the generation Y. It is necessary to enrich the subjective information of the tourists visiting on Edirne, to position the image of Edirne and to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the city regarding both academic and administrative aspects. These findings are important in terms of bringing the historical and cultural values that the city possesses to it and shaping the marketing strategies correctly. Although there have been many of studies that examine the relationships between consumer satisfaction and word-of-mouth in different research areas, there is a still gap in the tourism literature with regard to effect of subjective knowledge on word-of-mouth, as well as mediating effect of destination image and subjective knowledge relationship between satisfaction and word-of-mouth. It is aimed to explain some research questions on the effect of tourist’ satisfaction on destination image and tourist’ subjective knowledge and finally word-of-mouth as well as fill in this gap in the literature with this research. This study extends the previous studies by consisting the subjective knowledge of tourists on a destination by improving the scale with the data collected in Edirne. Finally, managerial and academic and implications are summarized. Some limitations should be considered in this study. Firstly, the data used in the study have obtained the dates between 22/09/2017 and 20/11/2017. For the future research, a longer duration of data can be considered, and it could be the effect the scope of the study. In the additional studies, some variables not represented in the model may add and model could be improved. Finally, this research conducted in Edirne aimed to explain tourist behaviors of people who prefer to visit the Edirne. Future research could extend the scope of research by conducting in different cities.