Experiencing Local Turkish Hospitality In Istanbul, Turkey

Keywords

Hospitableness; Hosts; Local hospitality; Local residents; Tourist interaction

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate tourists’ experiences of local hospitality and offer a typology of Turkish hospitality based on perspectives of international tourists. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with tourists visiting Istanbul, Turkey. Interview transcripts were content-analyzed and -coded under different themes that characterize local hospitality. Findings: The research findings revealed 64 items describing local Turkish hospitality. These were grouped under four distinct themes: sociability, care, helpfulness and generosity. Research limitations/implications: Using the factors of local Turkish hospitality identified in this paper, future studies might measure the impacts of these antecedents of local hospitality on tourist satisfaction and positive behaviors such as loyalty and word of mouth in a quantitative study. Exploring local hospitality in different destinations with different characteristics might also reveal valuable insight into variance and intensity of local hospitality. Practical implications: The research findings have implications for both commercial hospitality and destination management. By leveraging the local hospitality elements in their operations and human resources management practices, the commercial hospitality firms might create strong emotional bonds with their guests and create loyalty through these relationships. Destination planning and management might also adopt the findings to facilitate interactions between the hosts and tourists for more positive experiences for both sides to emerge. Social implications: Destinations exposed to heavy visitation may not have the same level of hospitableness toward visitors. Hence, impact of tourism activity on local quality of life should be monitored and managed. Originality/value: Despite hospitality having been researched in numerous previous studies, local hospitality has not yet been fully explored in tourism. This study presents and discusses empirical findings and offers a typology of local Turkish hospitality.

Publication Date

7-30-2018

Publication Title

International Journal of Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research

Volume

12

Issue

2

Number of Pages

223-237

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCTHR-06-2017-0070

Socpus ID

85048370005 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85048370005

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