The Determinants of Tourist Preferences of the Mediterranean Region in Turkey

Moving marketing strategies, which are changed through digital channels, into the social media environment, has led to changes in customer preferences in the tourism sector and is affected by the comments made in social media. Despite the fact that numerous studies have examined the impact of online customer comments on purchasing behaviour, most of these studies have used descriptive statistics and have ignored the empirical estimations. This study is aimed at examining the influence of the criteria obtained by content analysis on the star ratings given to the hotels based on the comments about the hotel on the TripAdvisor site. In this context, Mediterranean region hotels, which hold an important place in the tourism sector of Turkey, have been viewed, and the 25 hotels with the highest number of comments on the TripAdvisor site were selected, and 9000 comments from these hotels as well as the topic of the study were analysed with panel data methodology. As a result of the analyses made, it was determined that the criteria of the location and the accessibility of the hotels, the food and beverage concept presented by the hotels, the quality of the personnel–service, the cleaning elements, and the entertainment–animation programs were influential on the star ratings given to the hotels. It was also found that the architectural structure of the hotels and the other customers’ recommendation criteria are less important than the star ratings given to the hotel when compared to other specified criteria.