ABSTRACT
Consumer satisfaction is associated with different aspects of a product or service (Swan and Combs, 1976; Johnston, 1995; Sampson and Showalter, 1999; Bar tikowski and Llosa, 2004). Mittal et al. (1998: 33-34) summarize some of the reasons why it is advisable to take a multi attribute approach when dealing with consumer satisfaction. First, consumers judge their consumer experiences not only globally but also by rating different attributes. Second, consumers can have mixed impressions of a product or service, so that different aspects of a product can be judged in different ways. Third, an attribute based analysis gives a better diagnosis of how a product or service works. Fourth, suppliers need to know how overall satisfaction is generated and how different attributes influence it. Lastly, overall satisfaction and satisfaction with attributes are two qualitatively different concepts. In the case of a tourist destination, consumer satisfaction is clearly a multidi mensional concept. Tourist satisfaction is based on tourists’ perceptions of dif ferent aspects of the destination. Each plays a different role in the determination of overall satisfaction (Danaher and Arweiler, 1996; Kozak and Rimmington, 2000; Murphy et al., 2000). Enright and Newton (2004, 2005) uphold the idea that a destination is com petitive if it can attract and satisfy potential tourists and that this ability to
compete is determined not only by specific tourist-related factors but also by a broader range of factors. In the literature on sun and sand tourism products, the climate, beaches, scenery, quality of hotels and safety are included as destination-specific attributes. In this study, most of the factors that have been used previously to describe this type of destination were included (Kozak, 2001; Mangion et al., 2005; Aguiló et al., 2005; Yoon and Uysal, 2005; Alegre and Cladera, 2006). According to the classification system used by Enright and Newton (2005), most of them are specifically tourist related, not including busi ness factors. Some attributes related to pull factors (e.g. familiarity with the des tination and the presence of friends or relatives) were also included.
