OTEL İŞLETMELERİNDE UYGULANAN SOSYAL SORUMLULUK FAALİYETLERİNİN TURİSTLERİN SATIN ALMA NİYETİ ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ: İSTANBUL ÖRNEĞİ

Abstract

Research Problem: The purpose of the research is to determine the effect of social responsibility activities on tourism purchasing intentions at five stars hotel enterprises.
 Research Questions: What are social responsibility activities implemented at five stars hotel enterprises? How did tourists evaluate the social responsibility activities implemented in hotel enterprises? Do social responsibility activities at five stars hotel enterprises have any impact on tourists' purchasing intentions?
 Literature Review: Despite the increasing efforts to apply the concept of corporate social responsibility at hotel enterprises, it cannot be said that this concept is applied much at hotel enterprises compared to other sectors. When the related literature is examined, even though there can be seen many researches about implementation level of social responsibility at hotel business (Akova et al., 2016; Ateşoğlu and Türker, 2010; Mirzayeva et al., 2015; İçigen et al., 2016; Pelit et al., 2009), perception of this concept by tourists, occupants, managers and tourism students (Küçükusta et al., 2013, Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001, Tsai et al., 2012, Çalışkan and Ünsan, 2011, Holcomb and Smith, 2017, Koçoğlu and Saraç, 2016) and impact of social responsibility on job satisfaction, customer satisfaction and loyalty and customers’ hotel preference (Avci and Akdemir, 2014, Goodwin and Francis, 2003, Gucharit et al., 2011, Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006, Altunoglu and Colakoglu 2013, Martinez and Bosque, 2013, Wu et al., 2016), there are very limited studies related to purchase intention of corporate social responsibility at hotel businesses (Zhao, 2014; Ghosh et al., 2018; Yorulmazer and Dogan, 2017).
 Methodology: Survey technique is used as data collection method in the study. In the questionnaire, the corporate social responsibility scale developed by Carroll (1991) and consisting of 4 dimensions and 20 expressions and 3 expressions compiled from the researches of Cronin et al. (2000) and Wen and Li (2013) to determine the future purchase intent of guests arriving at the hotel are used. Tourists staying at five stars hotel enterprises in Istanbul constitute the universe of study. The purpose of implementing the study at five stars hotel enterprises is mainly due to the practice of social responsibility activities in large scale and institutional accommodation businesses (Garay and Font, 2012). In this study, convenience sampling method –one of the non-random sampling methods- is preferred as sampling method. In determining the sample size, it is taken into consideration that the size of 384 samples with 0.95 reliability would suffice which says if number of individuals in the research universe is one million and over (Sekaran, 2000). The questionnaire is applied to 515 tourists staying at five stars hotels in Istanbul. Since 15 surveys were missing and incorrectly filled, 500 valid surveys are obtained. 
 Findings and Conclusion: When the research findings are evaluated; as a result of explanatory factor analysis, it is emerged that the factors make social responsibility at hotel enterprises are economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and voluntary responsibility. Once it is looked at the perception level of social responsibility dimensions of tourists, it is revealed that the most important dimension that tourists think is voluntary responsibility, followed by ethical, legal and economic responsibilities respectively. Given the fact that the tourists' purchase intention are influenced by the dimensions of social responsibility in hotel operations, practiced in hotel enterprises; it is found that voluntary, ethical and legal responsibilities positively affect tourists’ purchasing intentions while economic responsibility had no significant effect on tourists' purchasing intentions. Tourists, as a consumer, attach great importance to responsibility practices that concern themselves and society. Economic responsibility, on the whole, is not thought to be a decisive factor in tourists' purchasing decisions, as it is a dimension that interests owners and partners of hotel businesses. When it is looked at other researches conducted in this area (Aymankuy et al., 2018; Ghosh et al., 2018; Wo et al., 2016; Zhao, 2014; Yorulmazer and Dogan, 2017), it is observed that the social responsibility activities implemented in hotel enterprises have positive impact on hotel preferences and purchase intention of tourists.
 It is evaluated that this research will contribute to the literature both theoretically and practically. It is revealed that research and social responsibility activities will have attitudinal and behavioural impact on tourists. Within this research, as many researchers have noted, the efforts of hotel businesses that implement social responsibility activities will not be unrequited and tourists will have positive attitudes and this situation will increase their purchasing intentions. These findings are supported theoretically as well (Ghosh et al., 2018; Koçoğlu and Aksoy, 2017, Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006; Lee et al., 2017; Suki et al., 2015). It is thought that the research may be useful for hotel management in practical terms. Due to the positive effects of the theoretically supported social responsibility activities on the purchase intention of tourists, it will be important for the hotel companies to comply with the following proposal as a practical matter.
 Besides the contributions of the research, there are some limitations. First of all, the realization of the research in only five star hotel establishments and in Istanbul constitutes a significant limitation. In addition to this, the evaluation of the research only from the point of view of tourists can also be considered as a limitation. It is proposed that future researches can be carried out on different destinations and taking all stakeholders into account.