A study on the satisfaction level of tourists with Turkish cuisine

Abstract

Indispensable part of tourism activities in the country, Turkish cuisine is among the biggest cuisines of the world together with French and Chinese cuisines. Turkish cuisine has been developed and enriched with the contributions of many different civilizations inhabiting the Turkish land. The Turkish cuisine has been affected by Western cuisines but it has also affected them. The present study was carried out on 138 foreign tourists visiting Alanya in July. The sample of the study consists of 4 four-star hotels in Alanya. While, selecting the hotel organizations to be included in the study factors, such as the owners' willingness to participate and environment comfortable enough for the researcher to work effectively and accessibility to the hotel organizations were taken into consideration. The tourists stated that when they came to Turkey on holiday, they preferred Turkish foods (52.9%), they preferred their own countries' foods (25.4%) and they preferred both Turkish foods and their own countries' foods (19.6%), only 2.2% of them stated that they preferred the foods of countries other than Turkey and their own country. The most liked foods by the tourists are yoghurt-soup among the soups, shish kebab among the meat dishes and dry bean dish with meat among the legumes, green beans among vegetable dishes prepared with meat, stuffed paper with olive oil among stuffed dishes, pilaf with rice among pilaffs, water heurek among pastry, potato salad among the salads, rice pudding among the desserts and lemonade among beverages. The tourists were asked whether they would recommend Turkish foods to other people when they went back to their countries. The 68.1% of them stated that they would recommend and 31.9% stated that they would not. © Medwell Journals, 2013.