A Scale Development Study on the Expectation of a Disabled Friendly Hotel in the Context of Accessible Tourism

Year 2025, Issue: Latest Articles

Ayşe Himmetoğlu , Beril Erkaya , Zeki Akıncı , Gülseren Yurcu , Edina Ajanovic , Gürkan Aybek , Didem Kutlu

https://doi.org/10.30519/ahtr.1646799

Abstract

Accessible tourism, which involves travel activities for people with disabilities, has become an increasingly important niche market for the hotel industry. This study aims to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale to assess the expectations of individuals with disabilities regarding hotel accommodations in the context of accessible tourism. A sequential exploratory mixed methods design was employed, beginning with semi-structured interviews conducted with disabled individuals to generate scale items, followed by a quantitative survey administered to 386 participants. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and SmartPLS 4. The scale development process involved exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, resulting in a final scale of 28 items across four dimensions: structural and legal expectations, communicative and interactional expectations, economic expectations, and psycho-social expectations. This study is among the first to develop and validate a hotel expectation scale specifically for individuals with disabilities in the Turkish context using an exploratory sequential mixed-method design. The results provide practical implications for hotel managers and policymakers aiming to improve accessibility in tourism services, and offer a psychometrically sound tool for future academic and applied research.

Keywords

disability , accessibility , people with disabilities , hotel management , accessible tourism , disabled friendly hotel

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