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

Abstract

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 statistical procedures were applied. The results obtained allowed for the visualization of a model that shows the empirical evidence regarding the presence of four types of foreign tourists that are considered valid for segmentation in the city of Córdoba as a WHS tourist destination: the alternative tourist, emotional tourist, cultural tourist, and heritage tourist. These results allow public and private managers to design specific strategies to increase visitor satisfaction.

Segmentation of Foreign Tourists Based on Emotional Perception—The Case of Granada, Spain

“…In the present study, the motivations of tourists to visit a destination with WHS inscription such as Granada were analysed and classified into four groups: cultural, circumstantial, hedonic, and convenience. Concerning the results obtained for the satisfaction variable, this work supports the conclusions drawn by previous studies [63,[70][71][72]. Specifically, it can be stated that the satisfaction of tourists increases according to their greater interest in the heritage of the city of Granada.…”

“…Satisfaction is closely linked with the authenticity of a place [69]. Menor-Campos et al [70] pointed out that both emotional experience and cultural motivation are factors that influence and condition tourist satisfaction. This effect is enlarged among foreign tourists who present a greater emotional perception as well as cultural motivation before visiting the historical heritage site.…”

An Application of the Walkability Index for Elderly Health—WIEH. The Case of the UNESCO Historic Centre of Porto, Portugal

“…As a last aspect regarding historic cities, there are several studies all over the world about the correlation between the onset of a World Heritage declaration process and the intensification of heritage tourism [35][36][37][38][39]. In the case of Porto, the city has invested in improving urban space since its declaration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, and many old buildings are now used as restaurants, bars, or shops.…”

Going beyond Good Intentions for the Sustainable Conservation of Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Willingness-to-pay is used to analyse residents' and visitors' disposition to support the costs of the preservation of cultural and natural heritage, allowing to identify and prioritise values (e.g., [92][93][94][95][96]). The publications referring to segmentation studies aim at typifying profiles of tourists (e.g., [97][98][99][100]) or local communities [101] according to behavioural characteristics, such as motivation to visit heritage sites [101] or awareness of the World Heritage brand [102], for instance.…”