Jaime Serra

Heterogeneity in Tourism Motivations: The Case of the Algarve

Abstract This chapter examines how motivational and behavioral indicators influence overnight stays of international tourists in the Algarve. The method includes a first selection of the motivations associating with high heterogeneity over the years considered, followed by a correlation matrix to assess how tourists’ behavioral patterns relate with overnight stays. Behavioral patterns by year are defined based on motivations, socio-demographics, intentions, and lagged satisfaction. The correlation analysis was conducted using 15,542 observations collected at Faro international airport, from 2007 to 2010. The findings include 10 main motivations and reveal that these motivations are statistically different by country and over the years. This study contributes to the overall understanding of the dynamics of tourism demand.

Steady tourists’ relationship with a mature destination: the case of Portugal

This article assesses how the last-visit features and the socio-demographic profile of tourists moderate repeat-visit patterns to Portugal, a mature destination where the persistence of loyal visitors has made its mark on tourism development. The methodology used is a survival analysis to assess the tourists’ repeat patterns. To test the model, a database of 4612 observations was employed, which was obtained from a survey of international tourists. Only repeat visitors with more than two visits over the years were considered for the purpose of the research. The study finds that a combination of socio-demographic characteristics, expectation/satisfaction, trip purpose, pull motivations and regional destination has a positive effect on repeat patterns, confirming that tourists’ willingness to repeat visits to Portugal is far from ceasing. Based on those tourists to Portugal who declared when they started to visit the country, and the number of years of their repeat visits, the article contributes to the literature by introducing new methods of assessing tourists’ repeat patterns for destinations.

Yielding Tourists’ Preferences

This chapter uses stated tourist preferences as a proxy of visitor yield measures, in order to analyse and understand the yield potential of different markets’ preferences. A literature review revealed that there is much progress to be made in terms of discussion, consensus and stability of methodology for the measurement of visitor yield. The aim of the visitor yield analysis, in the current chapter, is also to bring another dimension into yield analysis and discussion, contributing with a new form of measuring yield potential. Since the objective is to identify yield patterns based on tourist preferences over a period of time, dynamics may be captured from the fluctuation patterns, or expressed as volatility of visitor yield and length of stay throughout the years. Destination management organisations and tourist companies may potentially adopt this visitor yield matrix in order to support future strategic decisions.