Bulgaria as a tourist destination: The product quality perception of the resort hotels

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a secondary data analysis examining Polish tourists’ perception of tourism product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels. The researchers examined data collected by Itaka travel agency between 2010-2012 regarding tourists’ satisfaction with the package holidays in Bulgaria. Since the number of Polish tourists visiting Bulgaria has increased over the last years, it has been hypothesized that Bulgarian hotels offer a competitive value proposition and a very good price/quality relationship. The surveyed sample of tourists spent their summer holiday in one of 18 summer resorts located in Sunny Beach and in Golden Sands, 10 – three+-star hotels and 8 – four-star hotels and the total sample volume is 888 tourists. The quantitative analysis of tourists’ perceptions of product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels was performed through the SERVPERF scale based on the evaluation of a list of hotel attributes representing values important for tourists.