Tourist motivations in a heritage destination in Spain (original) (raw)

Heritage Tourists’ Motivation: The Case of Hagia Sophia

This research aimed to identify tourists' motivations to visit heritage places. Previous studies have shown that there are different reasons for visiting a heritage site, such as education, recreation or heritage experience. Besides, recent studies suggest that the relationship between heritage displayed at the site and tourists' perceptions of the site is central for the understanding of heritage tourism. In this research, the relationship between tourists' perceptions and heritage site's attributes will be investigated in the context of heritage tourism. To do this, the relationship between two variables (tourists' personal characteristics and tourists' perceptions of the site as part of their own heritage) and

Studying World Heritage visitors: the case of Cuenca, Ecuador

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to explore the existing relations between three fundamental constructs (motivation and satisfaction) and the type of travellers in a World Heritage Site (WHS) tourist destination, the city of Cuenca (Ecuador). Design/methodology/approach-The methodology used consisted of a fieldwork to determine the motivations and satisfaction of the visitor in the city of Cuenca, and then their segmentation. Findings-The relationship between the study of motivation and satisfaction is a fundamental element in the development of WHSs. Similarly, it presents four different types of tourists obtained from their motivational variables. The results show the existence of three motivational dimensions for visiting Cuenca: cultural, circumstantial and convenience. Similarly, and using the motivation scenarios, four types of visitor have been identified: a cultural tourist, a cultural convenience tourist, a cultural circumstantial tourist and an alternative tourist. Practical implications-The principal practical application of this research is to contribute to understanding the motivations of the visitors in relation to the city of Cuenca as a WHS for the purpose of designing tourist and cultural products that better satisfy the needs of the tourists and that, at the same time, are compatible with the sustainable management of the destination. Originality/value-This paper seeks to contribute to promoting the relationship between tourism, sustainability and heritage in Latin America. Keywords Cultural tourism, Cultural heritage, World Heritage, Historic cities, Site management Paper type Research paper This recognition has allowed many of these cities to make efforts to promote cultural tourism, although it is true that, in some cases, without prior planning, producing phenomena such as inadequate management or the attempt to reproduce successful formulas of other places that cannot be applied to the destination, or the lack of adequate services for the needs of today's tourists. The success of any initiative of a cultural tourism destination is its pubic, and their satisfaction will be conditioned, besides on purely aesthetic aspects such as its heritage, on others, such as the degree of interest awakened, its capacity of communication, of covering expectations, etc. Accordingly, correct planning, and in this case, regeneration, is important for the historic centres of WHSs (Cervelló-Royo et al., 2012). But for a city or a territory to design a cultural tourism product, it must meet the expectations that visitors have of knowledge of the heritage and of the culture, since it is the principal motivation for deciding on a certain destination (Correia et al., 2013) and of quality

Tourism and Motivation in Cultural Destinations: towards those Visitors Attracted by Intangible Heritage

Almatourism: Journal of Tourism, Culture and Territorial Development, 2016

The intangible heritage increasingly associated with tourism in a territory is today, an element that is attracting more and more visitors. However, there are still few studies that address issues such as the motivation of these tourists, especially in contexts like those of Latin America. The aim of this research is to analyze the relationship between the motivation and satisfaction obtained by tourists who have visited the places associated with the Panama hat (recognized as an Intangible Heritage by UNESCO in 2012) in the city of Cuenca (Ecuador). The work creates a segmentation of tourists based on three dimensions: the cultural, another related to leisure and the last in reference to social and labor issues. For this, it applies a factorial analysis, cluster analysis and an analysis of variance (ANOVA with post-hoc multiple comparisons). The results show that the cultural aspect of motivation is the most important, being, however, the motivation for leisure issues which gives o...

TOURISTS' MOTIVATION TOWARD VISITING A WORLD HERITAGE SITE: THE CASE OF GUIMARÃES

Within the major role that the tourism industry is taking in sustaining and enhancing growth in economies all around the world, the cultural segment deserves a particular look as in most cases, it is playing a leading role. This has to do with the idea of tourists' visits as a memorable happening and an authentic experience and relates to the psychological dimension of tourist demand. This study investigated the motivation behind the choice of a cultural/heritage destination, and particularly a World Heritage Site (WHS). Taking the case of Guimarães, the study inquired on the tourists' motivations and perceived attributes of the city to conclude on the level of satisfaction tourists get from their visits and the destination attributes. The methodology used in this research was of a quantitative nature, based on a self-administered survey applied to 325 tourists who visited Guimarães during 2015. In that analytical approach, tourists were organized according to their main visit motivation, i.e., if they were mainly motivated by visiting a World Heritage Site or by other reasons. An interesting result was that despite WHS visitors reporting higher satisfaction levels, the other type of visitors want to return in greater numbers. The study concluded that the destination is performing well but is suffering from not having a consolidated image in the market. Looking at these and other results obtained, several recommendations were made to increase tourists' satisfaction vis-à-vis the destination by mainly addressing the strategy to be used in advertising the set of products and services it can provide to visitors.

Satisfaction, motivation, loyalty and segmentation of tourists in World Heritage cities

Pasos. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 2018

This paper presents research that deals with the study of the motivation, satisfaction and loyalty of tourists visiting the city of Cordoba, Spain, a World Heritage Site. For this, the results of a study carried out on tourists during their stay in the city are presented. The study identifies two motivational dimensions in connection with the visit: one cultural and the other multi-motivational, which includes a variety of reasons such as gastronomy and pleasure-seeking. Additionally, also analysed in this research is how the motivation for visiting the city leads to tourists having greater satisfaction with their visit and more loyalty to that tourist destination.

Foreign Tourists in World Heritage Sites: A Motivation-Based Segmentation

Sustainability

The inclusion on the lists published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—World Heritage Site (WHS), Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), and World Heritage Sites in Danger—suggests, first of all, the acknowledgement of something worth protecting and, secondly, an increase in the strength of tourist attraction to the affected destination, especially among specific visitors. The identification and classification of tourists that are seen to be more interested in heritage is the stated aim of this work, based on models already proposed in the scientific literature. For this purpose, a survey was conducted that interviewed a representative sample of international tourists visiting the city of Córdoba. A multi-variant technique of case-cluster was applied. In addition, a discriminant analysis was used to validate the clusters of the cases obtained. For analyzing the differences between the different groups obtained, some non-parametrical stati...

Assessing the tourism attractiveness of World Heritage Sites: The case of Spain

Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2021

No consensus has been reached on the effectiveness of World Heritage Sites (WHSs) in attracting tourism. This paper analyzes the impact of WHSs on tourist demand in Spain at a disaggregated level for all Spanish provinces (NUTS-3 regions), based on original panel data for 50 Spanish provinces for the 2000-2019 period. The results show a positive impact of WHSs on domestic and foreign tourism demand when considering all the provinces together and that the first WHSs (designated in the 1980s) have a greater tourism-enhancing effect ("first generation effect"). However, there are differences between Spanish inland and coastal provinces: only cultural WHSs have an impact on tourism in inland provinces, whereas, in coastal provinces, only natural WHSs have the power of tourism attraction.

Links between Tourists, Heritage, and Reasons for Visiting Heritage Sites

Journal of Travel Research, 2004

This paper aims to clarify heritage tourism by identifying and segmenting reasons for visiting heritage sites. In doing so it highlights the point that the links between a site's attributes and the tourists themselves are essential to understanding tourists' motivations to visit heritage places. The sample was composed of English speaking international tourists leaving Israel through Ben-Gurion airport, who were sampled quasi-randomly. The research was implemented by the use of structured questionnaires using face-to-face interviews. Responses were grouped using an interpretability approach to exploratory factor analysis, and the results indicate that the reasons for visiting can be classified into three. These groups have been labeled 'heritage experience', 'learning experience' and 'recreational experience', and are linked to the tourists' perception of the site in relation to their own heritage and their willingness to be exposed to an emotional experience. The results lead to a better understanding of reasons for visiting heritage places, and provide further insight into heritage tourism in general. The findings are also relevant to the operational management of spaces presenting history-related artifacts as well as to the marketing of these sites.

Historical Heritage as a Tourist Resource: The Case of the Province of Cádiz, Spain

WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, 2019

This article has the purpose of analyzing the tourist situation of the historical heritage in the municipalities of the province of Cádiz, considering the need for this type of offer and the obligation to make changes in the management and planning of these resources. The objective of this study is to analyze the tourist use of heritage, its perception by society and the proposal for improvements. All the results presented are the product of a more extensive preliminary research on tourism in the province carried out at the University of Cádiz (Spain). The tourist functionality of historical assets has been studied through the use of different tools that combine the quantitative with the qualitative. At the provincial level, a total of 1,049 assets have been documented, representing an average of 23.84 assets per municipality. With the results obtained, a SWOT has been designed to facilitate the elaboration of proposals and conclusions, whose purpose is to redefine the planning and management of the goods, guaranteeing their sustainability and contribution to the diversification of the tourist offer.

Heritage, Accommodation, Restaurants and Transport as Motivators for Cultural Tourism

2015

The aim of the article is models - including classifications of attributes of cultural tourism of a destination and specifically of its main components (cultural and historical sites, accommodation, food and beverage establishments and transport) - to be presented. Those attributes could be estimated by visitors with regard to their importance and thus the motivation for cultural tourism to be assessed. In this paper a study is presented where the selected attributes are evaluated by actual and potential cultural tourists.