Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF TOURISM AND SERVICES, cilt.9, sa.17, 2018 (ESCI)
Cultural heritage sites impress the visitors by their 'worth-to-see' architectural characteristics, and historical or cultural importance. Visitor experiences at cultural areas are also influenced by site atmospherics, and crowd, that form visitors' overall satisfaction with site. The main objectives of this study, therefore, are: (1) to reveal perceived crowding, atmospherics, and visitor satisfaction relationships at a cultural heritage site; and (2) to compare the cross-national differences in the sample of Turkish and British visitors. With this purpose, a survey was conducted at one of the most popular heritage sites of Turkey; Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. Data collected from 261 Turkish and 236 British visitors, who have seen the interior and exterior parts of the Palace. By factor analysis, atmospherics is found to have two dimensions, namely; service and spatial. Analyses results exhibit that both atmospherics dimensions positively affect visitor satisfaction, although perceived crowding has a negative impact or both nationalities. Findings of this study indicate that cultural heritage sites are the areas where domestic and foreign visitors may have similar kinds of perceptions and evaluations.