Impact of the attributes of private tourist accommodation facilities onto prices: A hedonic price approach

Abstract

The concept of private tourist accommodation has been insufficiently studied in tourism economics literature. It has been only marginally brought up along with the hotel accommodation in scientific papers within the last ten years. Private accommodation represents almost 50% of the total capacity in the structure of accommodation in Croatia. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of facility prices for private accommodation in one of the Croatian leading tourist destinations, Dubrovnik, through empirical research. Hedonic model is applied to analyse the role of different attributes in form of the overall price of representative sample of private accommodation facilities and to demonstrate how facility prices can be related to certain attributes of private accommodation. The explanatory variables of the overall price, among others, include location, characteristics such as availability of free parking place, distance to the Old Town, sea view, terrace/garden. The results of this research provide instructions and direction to main tourism stakeholders and policy makers, and at the same time assist facility owners in shaping prices helping them to create instruments for future planning.