Tourist profiles and intra-destination visiting preferences in a mature coastal destination: More than beach

Abstract

This paper aims to explore if the presence of diverse tourist profiles staying in the same accommodation hub of a mature Mediterranean coastal destination also implies specific intra-destination visiting preferences. The study uses Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to detect tourist profiles according to their socio-demographic and psychographic factors, as well as their trip organisation characteristics. Then, selection corrected estimations are used to focus on the side trips each profile is more willing or reluctant to make from the accommodation hub. Results show a wide range of tourist profiles with a high level of heterogeneity regarding individual characteristics and intra-destination visiting preferences. This provides further understanding of tourist choices at a destination and empirical evidence that allows breaking away from the traditional static, beach-focused view of coastal tourists. In turn, this informs the destination and its stakeholders so that they can apply the appropriate planning, management and branding tools to adapt the destination and its products and services to the different tourism targets. The implementation of this kind of studies and the use of their results by local stakeholders as strategy for diversification and competitiveness growth would make the whole destination more competitive.