Other Tourists as Part of Tourism Product

Abstract

In the tourism services context, tourists receive services simultaneously with other tourists who consume services and share the same service environment with them. Therefore, other tourists in the service environment may have a positive and negative impact on the tourist’s service experience due to some of their appropriate or inappropriate behaviours. This may also affect the tourist’s subsequent purchasing behaviour. Hence, understanding the nature of tourist-tourist interactions (T2T) is important for the tourism industry. However, there are very limited studies on this issue in the literature. Therefore, this study was performed to explore incidents that cause satisfaction and disturbance of tourists during interactions, how these interactions occur, what levels, and in which places. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 foreign tourists visiting Istanbul. In order to ensure the reliability and validity of the research, the data triangulation technique was used, and a focus group interview was employed with seven tourist guides. The findings revealed that the T2T interactions occurred directly and indirectly. Direct interactions consisted of spontaneous, superficial, and close interactions. Interactions occurred in service and public areas. Friendly, considerate, hostile, inconsiderate and rude, illegal and prohibited, offensive, and disgusting behaviours of other tourists caused the tourists’ satisfaction and disturbance.