Measuring the level of satisfaction with respect to the quality of services provided by the local tourist destination (Case of Study: Mashhad City)

Tourism managers in Mashhad claim that the city's tourism planning process is now emphasizing on the revealed needs rather than expressed needs, and this has increased the satisfaction of tourists in the city. In order to test this assumption, the purpose of this survey was to determine the degree of satisfaction with the quality of services provided in the city. The research method is descriptive and analytical. The required information was obtained through a researcher-made questionnaire from a sample of 670 people. Collected data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman, Chi-square and single-sample t-tests. The findings indicate that tourists are largely satisfied with the socio-cultural and environmental conditions and infrastructural facilities and tourists with different educational backgrounds have the same views regarding satisfaction of tourism conditions. Also, there is no significant relationship between the length of stay of tourists and their level of satisfaction with tourism conditions. The level of satisfaction of domestic tourists is high with respect to the host society and there is a significant difference between the attitudes of tourists in this regard. Moreover, tourists with different educational backgrounds have different views on how to deal with the host community. Based on these results, the authorities' claims regarding the evolution of the service delivery system to tourists cannot be ignored.