Abstract:

Purpose and Importance: The aim of this study is to determine customer complaints (CC) and complaint behaviours (CB) of tourists who attend cultural tours conducting at Cappadocia region. Exploring the relationships between CC and CB and determining the effects of CC on CB constitute another aim of this study. Limited researches about CC on professional tours and the necessity of considering customer demands in the development of cultural tourism, makes this research important in the Methodology: Research data was obtained from100 visitors who participated in the cultural tours in the Cappadocia region with the questionnaire technique. The survey, which was adapted from Zorlu, Çeken and Kara’s (2013) study, was conducted in February-April 2017. Descriptive analyses (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation techniques) and relationship measurement analysis (correlation analysis) were performed after applying validity (factor analysis) and reliability (Cronbach's appraisal number) analyses. Findings: Results of the study indicate that the basic complaint issues in culture tours are originated from tour content, from tour guide, from breaks and from bus staff 's attitude. Tourists show private responses, voice responses and third-party responses depending on the basic complaint issues. However, there is a significant relationship between CC and CB. Originality/Value: This study constitutes one of limited researches that tackle CC and CB on professional tours. However, in the context of its results, it provides important information on the field and sector representatives. According to the researches, individuals verbalize their satisfaction to 7 people, but they convey their complaints to at least 20 people. On the other hand, the fact that gaining a new tourist is at least 6 times costlier than holding a tourist at hand makes the results of this research more important. Limitations/implications: The basic limitations of this research are that only quantitative research techniques are preferred, the research sample is restricted to 100 people, the research is only carried out in a certain period, and the number of similar researches is very few and thus the results are not comparable with similar ones. 

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