JEMS Maritime Sci. Ahead of Print: JEMS-35403

Cruise Passengers Perceived Service Quality During the Pandemic Period via User Generated Content

Batuhan Çullu¹, Nergis Özispa², Gamze Arabelen^3
1Söke Business Administration Faculty, Aydýn Adnan Menderes University, Aydýn, Turkiye
²Department of Maritime Business Administration, Mersin University, Mersin, Turkiye
³Department of Maritime Business Administration, Dokuz Eylül University, Ýzmir, Turkiye

Coronavirus epidemic, which emerged in Wuhan at the end of 2019, spread all over the world and caused more than 4 million deaths as of 2021. The cruise industry, whose goal is to keep customer satisfaction at the highest possible level like all service industries, has passed a difficult test with serious COVID-19 cases that emerged on various ships. The new rules of the COVÝD-19 pandemic are reflected in the service processes of the ships that started to sail again after a long-term pause in the sector. The main motivation of this study is to determine whether the factors affecting customers' perceived service quality have changed during the pandemic period in the cruise industry, which is one of the sectors where service quality should be kept high. Therefore, this study aims to determine the factors affecting the perceived service quality of cruise passengers and decide the new factors that occurred during the pandemic. To achieve this goal, the online narratives of 418 passengers cruising in the European Region between September 2020 and September 2021 were analyzed using Leximancer software, and key elements of passengers' perceptions of service quality were determined. As a result of the study, cabin location, restaurant and covid variables were added to the factors affecting the perceived service quality of customers in cruise voyages during the pandemic period, disembarkation and embarkation, which were among the important variables in the pre-covid period, were moved under the covid heading and it has been determined that cruise companies' work in accordance with Covid measures during this period has a positive impact on customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Cruise Industry, Leximancer, Service Quality Perception, User Generated Content

---