The Factors Affecting the Increase of Tourists’ Satisfaction with Eco Lodges Case Study: Eco Lodges of Damavand

One of the important issues in tourism that should be considered is the necessity of creating equipment for receiving tourists and providing facilities proportionate to their expectations and based on the sustainable tourism criteria. Gaining the tourists’ satisfaction is one of the challenges that the employees of the residence centers are dealing with since it can encourage the tourists to return to that residence again, help word-of-mouth advertising, and help them continue their business. This research has investigated the factors affecting the increase of tourists’ satisfaction with the Eco- lodges of Damavand. The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive survey method and done by correlational and multivariate regression methods. The statistical population of the research included the tourists who stayed in eco-lodges in Damavand city in spring and summer 2020 (N=400). The sample size was calculated to be 196 based on the Cochran formula, and they were selected through random convenience sampling. Data collection and the variable assessment tool was a questionnaire, the validity of which was approved by 10 Professors in the field of tourism and the statistical analysis software specialists. The reliability of the questionnaire was approved to be high and equaled 0.86 using Cronbach's tests. The data were analyzed by SPSS software. The results revealed that the variables of location and accessibility of the eco-lodge had no significant relationship with tourists’ satisfaction. The variable of rendering high-quality services and the performance of the employees had a significant relationship with the satisfaction of the tourists. The studied tourists were satisfied with the location and accessibility of the investigated eco-lodges. They were dissatisfied with the variables of high-quality services and the performance of the employees and staff. The regression analysis results indicated that the location and accessibility of the eco-lodge, the quality of services, and the performance of the staff of the Eco-lodge had a significant impact on enhancing the satisfaction of the tourists. Among them, the quality of services had a relatively greater impact on increasing tourist satisfaction