Possible complex approaches towards evaluating the quality of a destination in the context of tourism management

Thepaper deals with the issues concerning evaluating the quality of a destination in the context of tourism. A destination has to be looked on as a complex product of tourism consisting of products, services, natural resources, artificially created attractions and information being connected. The satisfaction of visitors to a destination is dependent on the quality of their overall experience that is created on the basis of the cooperation of all participants working in tourism in the given area - these are local inhabitants, service providers, public administration workers and destination management workers. The paper shows possible approaches towards the complex evaluation of the destination quality. The first of the models is based on the European Consumer Satisfaction Index methodology and modifies it for evaluating the satisfaction of a visitor to a destination (in the researched destination, the values of the total ECSI indexes were calculated at 70% level in the case of home as well as foreign visitors). The second model - so-called Four-dimensional model of the destination quality - is based on the integrated approach to quality management when - with the support of the principal component analysis - a new methodology for evaluating the quality of a destination was suggested; it is based on four topically defined quality dimensions: attractions, services, marketing management, cooperation and sustainability. In the case of the suggested models, we also see their potential for increasing the quality of services in rural areas, which is the subject of the authors' further research.