The mediating role of tourist satisfaction on the relationship between seryice quality and tourist re-visit intention: With reference to the SME hotels in Mirissa tourist destination, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Tourism industrl; can be recognized (ls one of the most prevalent as v'eJl as the upcoming industries ever. Globally, there is a huge corupetition to attract ntore tourists towards their countries as it directly affects for the improvement of foreign income and also contributes for the Gross Domestic Production. Qualit-r- of the senices provided by a tourist hotel is playing a vital role in determining the tourist's second visitation to the same hotel. Having repeat tourisls v'ill enhance rhe tmogc of the hotel in a significant level. A higher level oJ' service quali4' determines the higher level o.f tourist satisfaction. Especially, as a service organization, tourist hotel should be .focused enough on the service qualityu to make their customers to re-visit them again and again with superior level of satisfaction. To have more from tourism, it is important to provide high qualiE' services.for the tourist. Though, there are lctrge number o.f tourist hotels established in Sri Lanka, maintain the service quality qnd ensure the satisfac'tion of tourist is debatable. Thus, this study has beenfocused to identify the sen,ice quali4;, tourist's satisfaction and their revisit intention. All these three ,-ariables are highly important in determining the success oJ the tourism industry. The population of this study comprised with tourists who have been stayed in 05 selected SME hotels in Mirissa, Sri Lanka during 0lst September 20lB to 31th September 2018. Mirissa is one of the most vibrant tourist destinations in down south of Sri Lanko, for which millions o.f rupees have been invested to develop tourism sector. Based on the convenience sampling technique, a sample of 100 respondents wa,s selected. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather the primary data while using some secondaty sources as well. Bi-variate and multi-variate analysis were adopted to analyse the data with the help of SPSS. The stu$t reveals that there is a positive relationship between service quality and re-visit intention. Tangibility significantly affects in determining the tourists re-visit intention and the study emphasizes that there is no mediationfrom tourist's satisfaction on the association between service quality and the re-visit intention. Finally, the study sheds light on how hoteliers and practitioners can improve the service quality dimensions of their services in order to provide tourists with a quality service and make the tourists repeat guests in their property.