Contrasting quality of service experience for northern and southern Mediterranean tourists

The purpose of this paper is to examine quality of service experience as reported by tourists in seven northern and southern Mediterranean cities.

A self-report study was used to gather data from 1,362 tourists. Once validity of Otto and Ritchie’s (1996) scale had been confirmed, ANOVA and the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test were used to analyse the data.

Tourists in all destinations highlighted the importance of the dimension peace of mind. Significant differences between tourists in the northern Mediterranean and those in the southern Mediterranean were observed in two quality of service experience dimensions: hedonics and involvement.

Although the sample was large, this study’s scope was limited to seven Mediterranean tourist cities. Further research is therefore required to generalize findings to other Mediterranean tourist destinations.

Knowledge about quality of service experience dimensions may help tourism managers innovate and improve services. Tourists perceive northern Mediterranean destinations differently from destinations in the southern Mediterranean. Tourists report high tourist involvement in northern destinations, whereas in the south, tourists emphasize destinations’ hedonic features. These implications are also valuable for European policymakers.

The study compared quality of service experience in northern and southern Mediterranean tourist destinations. To do so, it analysed a sample of 1,362 tourists from seven Mediterranean cities. This research is the first to analyse quality of service experience in the Mediterranean.