PERCEIVING DESTINATION QUALITY ON THE LEVEL OF THE ORGANIZATION/TOURISM SERVICE PROVIDER

The paper briefly summarizes the results of the research analyzing the viewpoints of tourism service providers in the Czech Republic concerning the quality in the destination. Principal quality factors of the destination are revealed, their importance is defined and the dependency of perceiving quality factors importance on the type of the provider, on overall destination quality evaluation or on the existence of destination management is examined. Primary data were obtained through a questionnaire survey with the quota selection of respondents. The nineteen research factors were designed on the basis of contemporary theories and on the qualitative research. Within the discussion the findings are compared with a similar research that focuses on the client/visitor to the destination and then the main discrepancies/gaps in perceiving the quality between offer and demand are determined. The visitors and the service providers in the destination agree on security to be the most important quality factor of the destination. The cleanliness of the destination is the second most important factor for the visitors whereas the service providers consider it to be the eighth most important factor and they have classified the quality level of the personnel to be the second. The obtained results can contribute to more efficient destination management and they are the part of the long-term research aimed at evaluating destination quality.