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

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.