Do attitudes influence the satisfaction level? Assessing tourists’ cultural and hedonic attitudes in Palma de Mallorca

Abstract

[eng] Being an extremely popular destination, Mallorca attracts tourists who are highly heterogeneous with respect to attitudes and interests. Therefore, it is important to know if attitudes are related to satisfaction level and recommendation. I hypothesize that tourists with higher scores in hedonic attitudes would have a higher score of general satisfaction than tourists with cultural attitudes. Tourist experience and satisfaction are immensely complex phenomena, however, surveying and assessing tourist satisfaction based on their cultural and hedonic attitudes have a crucial importance in tourism competitiveness. The purpose of this research paper is to explore to what extent attitude is responsible for tourist satisfaction in Palma de Mallorca. Previous researches in the field are reviewed and a questionnaire to explore the relevant areas was formulated to support the hypothesis and the satisfaction level was assessed through a 10-point Likert scale. The obtained information was entered into SPSS and regression analyses were carried out. The results justified that there is a positive correlation between hedonic attitude and general satisfaction and also between cultural attitude and recommendation. However, in case of these two variables the positive correlation is not statistically significant. Two variables (image and risks) have a significant correlation with general satisfaction and only one variable (image) has a significant correlation with recommendation. The model showed that there is a positive correlation between general satisfaction and recommendation, which is statistically significant. Also, they gave insight to the complexity of the phenomena, furthermore it focused my attention to the fact that a more cultural attitude could contribute to maintaining destination image and reducing the burden and risks of Mallorca’s tourism. The problems should be addressed with suitable preventive measures which authorities should take into consideration in order to make Mallorca’s tourism competitive and sustainable in the long run.