Tourists’ Preferences for Stargazing Land Resources

Abstract

Stargazing tourism is an expanding market niche that requires the development of territorial resources for its implementation and attraction. This paper’s objective is to investigate the preferences and willingness to pay of tourists for the development of strategic land resources for stargazing tourism activities. The field work was conducted on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands), which is promoting the territorial development of infrastructures for stargazing tourism. A random sample of 734 tourists were interviewed in person on-site in December 2019 following the methodology discrete choice experiments that enabled an estimation of tourists’ preferences and willingness to pay for the implementation of key land resources for stargazing. The data are modeled using a latent class model that allows for the consideration of heterogeneous preferences. The results show that there are three groups of tourists with different preferences for land resources of stargazing observation. These segments are respectively related to the interests in culture, active, and astronomic tourism. Those tourists in the active stargazing segment share the largest proportion of the market and favor the implementation of facilities that allow the combination of active tourism with stargazing. The results are useful for land product development and territorial strategies aimed at positioning destinations in the identified demand niches of stargazing tourism.

The Role of Astronomy Tourism in Promoting Egypt

“…promotion and the implementation of a number of measures to facilitate are needed, these include training tourism staff, preparing the necessary infrastructure for sky observations, educating people about the protection of the black sky, and taking steps to keep the environment in its natural condition (Mitura et al, 2017). Consequently, to promote stargazing tourism, there is a need for planning and development of essential terrestrial resources and infrastructures that offer services to tourists by facilitating and improving the observing experience (Fernández-Hernández et al, 2022).…”

Astrotourism research landscape: a bibliometric analysis

“…The first, night sky brightness, contains two articles that study the potential of astrotourism destinations through measurements of sky luminosity (C- Sánchez et al, 2019;Kanianska et al, 2020). The second cluster, stargazing tourism, also has two publications that examine the behavior and preferences (Fernández-Hernández et al, 2022;Li, 2021) of stargazing tourism. The northern lights tourism cluster has two articles.…”

“…On the other hand, there are articles with low development and centrality, such as those that evaluate different luminosity indicators as attributes to measure the success of potential tourist destinations (C-Sánchez et al, 2019;Kanianska et al, 2020). Additionally, the use of concepts such as stargazing tourism and northern light tourism is an emerging trend that is beginning to develop (Fernández-Hernández et al, 2022;Heimtun & Haug, 2022;Li, 2021).…”

Geotourism on an active volcanic island (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain)

“…However, unlike other Canary Islands where the main focus is on 'sun-and-beach tourism', La Palma has historically opted less for mass tourism than for more sustainable tourism based on activities related to its natural and cultural heritage. The main tourist attractions on La Palma, therefore, revolve around its volcanic heritage, and comprise hiking, archaeology and stargazing (Tourism Chair 2016, Fernández-Hernández et al 2022.…”