Turkish Customers’ Perceptions of Dining Experience in Asian Restaurants in Istanbul

Abstract

This paper analyzes the perceptions of Turkish customers regarding their experiences at Asian restaurants in Istanbul. Within the scope of the study, 1,348 online reviews written in Turkish on TripAdvisor for Asian restaurants operating in Istanbul were analyzed with the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm and sentiment analysis. As a result of the analysis nine dimensions affecting the experiences of Turkish customers at Asian restaurants were determined, four of which were specific to the restaurant (view, staff, place, order) and five of which were related to food (real taste, food, sauce and spice, sushi, flavor). It was found that flavor and food are the main dimensions that positively affect Turkish customers’ Asian restaurant experiences. Order was found to be the most important dimension that negatively affects them. To my knowledge, this is the first study interpreting the perception of Turkish customers’ experiences of Asian restaurants through online reviews in Turkish.