CONTRIBUTIONS OF COUNTRYSIDE RESTAURANTS TO RURAL TOURISM: A MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVE
Özcan Zorlu, Ali Avan, Seyhmus Demircan
DOI: 10.35666/25662880.2015.1.119
UDC: 338.48-44:640.4(560-22)
Abstract: With the growing attention on alternative tourism activities and environmental protection, rural tourism has become one of the most attractive tourism typesover the last decade, and many more studies have been conducted in the field of rural tourism development and in all other aspects except the importance of countryside restaurants (CSRs).Nevertheless, we see that only a few studies concerning CSRs exist in the current literature. However, CSRs are an important part of rural tourism with their specific service standards including indigenous food & beverages, high customer satisfaction as a result of individual service and a natural & attractive atmosphere. Thus, the prior aim of this study is to stress the importance of CSRs and how those establishments contribute to the development of rural tourism. Within this scope, the study isconducted on 12 CSRs operating in Muğla and a semi-structured interview technique is used as a part of qualitative analysis. As a result it‟s concluded that CSRs contribute to rural tourism by respecting-protecting and landscaping the nature, by serving local dishes made by indigenous crops, by employing locals and by supplying local foods. Finally, some suggestions are made in order to improve CSRs contribution level and rural tourism development within a managerial perspective.
Keywords: Rural tourism, countryside restaurant, regional development, local dishes.