Abstract
Tourist demand segmentation can provide important information for creating products tailored to the clusters found. The present empirical work was carried out in situ in Ecuador at the Villamil Beach National Recreation Area, a coastal marine destination within a national recreation area. Factor analysis on responses by tourists to a questionnaire produces two motivational dimensions: 'Ecotourism' and 'Sun and beach'. Three tourist segments are found: 'Beach lovers', who have high motivations for enjoying the sun and the beach, 'Coastal Nature', who have high motivations for enjoying the typical gastronomy, for the sun and the beach, for the tourist attractions and for knowing the flora and fauna and, finally, 'Coastal Passive', who have medium and low motivations in all aspects.
Highlights
In January 2018, the Barometer of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported a global total of 1,322 million tourist arrivals in 2017, some 83 million more than 2016
After analysing the theory related to the motivation and satisfaction in destinations with coastal marine characteristics, such as the Villamil Beach National Recreation Area, the results show a relationship with the two dimensions of motivation found by Prebensen, Skallerud, and Chen (2010): “Body-related” is similar to the dimension of “sun and beach” of the present study and “Mind- related” similar to “Ecotourism” of the present study, which would seem to show that in these destinations with natural and cultural characteristics one could find the two dimensions indicated
The segmentation of demand in a coastal marine destination within a national recreation area provides important information that allows the creation of products related to the clusters found
Summary
In January 2018, the Barometer of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported a global total of 1,322 million tourist arrivals in 2017, some 83 million more than 2016. This remarkable increase of 7% is substantially higher than the sustained rate of 4% registered since 2010 and represents the highest increase in seven years. The Americas (+3% overall) received 207 million tourists, and South America led the regional growth with a 7% increase. According to their Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR, 2018) Ecuador had an arrival increase of 14%. WTO experts predict that arrivals will grow at a rate between 4% and 5% in 2018
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