Determinants of Satisfaction and Loyalty of Rural Tourists towards Ecotourism Residences in Gilan Province

Gilan province, one of the country's tourism poles in terms of its privileged natural location and climatic conditions, has many natural, historical, religious, cultural, social and economic attractions and numerous God-given gifts. According to the statistical yearbook of 2015, out of a total of 258 residences in the country, there was one tourism residence unit in Gilan province. In 2016, there were 5 accommodation units out of a total of 441 accommodation units, and in 2017, out of 540 ecotourism accommodation units, there were only three official ecotourism units, and this number reached 14 units in 2018. This statistic has grown significantly in the summer of 2019 and the number of eco-tourism residences in this province has reached 48 units. The rapid growth of ecotourism accommodations in recent years makes it necessary to provide proper services to tourists. This leads to the satisfaction and loyalty of tourists towards ecotourism accommodations. In this regard, the present research was designed and carried out with the aim at investigating the satisfaction with the service quality and the loyalty of rural tourists to the eco-tourist accommodations in Gilan province. In this regard, the American model of measuring customer satisfaction is the basis for measuring the satisfaction and loyalty of tourists. According to this model, the satisfaction of tourists in ecotourism accommodations is directly influenced by the quality of services, the expectations of tourists, and the value perceived by them. In addition to the direct effect, the quality of services and the expectations of tourists affect satisfaction indirectly through the perceived value. The satisfaction of tourists affects the loyalty of tourists both directly and indirectly (through the complaint reduction variable).

The study was descriptive - correlation and conducted through a survey method. The statistical population of the study included all rural tourists of ecotourism residences in Gilan province in 2020 year. The sample size was 315 tourists which were selected among five cities by using stratified random sampling method. The research instrument was a questionnaire whose content validity was confirmed by professors and relevant experts and its reliability was determined by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient between 0.72-0.89. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. To describe the variables mean, standard deviation, frequency, percentage and cumulative percentage were used. To investigate the relationship between the variables, the correlation coefficient was used, and to calculate the difference between satisfaction and loyalty in different groups, the Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis H tests were used. Finally, path analysis has been used to investigate the direct and indirect effects of variables on the dependent variable.

According to the results, tourists' satisfaction and loyalty to ecotourism residences were assessed at a good level. The results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between service qualities, customer expectations, perceived value with the dependent variable of tourist satisfaction at the level of 1%. In addition, there was a positive and significant relationship between tourists' satisfaction and complaint reduction with the dependent variable of loyalty at the level of 1%. In comparison, the perceived value variable has a higher correlation with the tourism service satisfaction variable. In other words, the valuableness of the services received makes tourists more satisfied. Meanwhile, according to the results of the path analysis, the received service quality variable has the highest total causal effect on the satisfaction variable, and the service perceived value variable ranks second. The results of Mann–Whitney U tests showed that there was a significant difference between men and women according to the variables of satisfaction and loyalty at 5% level. In this case, men are more loyal than women. The reason for this difference is probably due to women's higher expectations of the services provided by eco-tourist accommodations. According to the results of path analysis, the variable of services quality has the most total causal effect on satisfaction and the variable of reducing complaints has the most direct and total causal effect on tourist loyalty. Dealing with tourists' requests, providing compensatory services, as well as the appropriate quality of the services provided, will lead to the loyalty of the tourist and his/her next visit to the tourist accommodation.

In the present research, the satisfaction and loyalty of tourists in eco-tourism accommodations has been measured using a valid and documented framework. Examining the mean of the main variables shows that all these variables are at a medium to high level from the point of view of rural tourists. In other words, tourists have evaluated the current state of service provided, fulfillment of expectations, value of services received, satisfaction with services provided, addressing possible shortcomings and loyalty to eco-tourism accommodations in an appropriate situation. In order to improve the quality of eco-tourism accommodation services and also since the monitoring of the implementation is considered a basic process, it is suggested to evaluate the performance system in eco-tourism accommodation, especially in the field of services to tourists.Considering the significant growth of eco-tourism residences in recent years in Gilan province and in order to prevent a merely quantitative growth and also with the aim of sustainability and permanence of these residences, the results of the present research can be taken into consideration by the officials and owners of the accommodations in order to gain the satisfaction and loyalty of the tourists.