Third International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Defining leisure is not an easy task and the efforts of academia in this research field reveal that it can not be reduced to a simple definition. The research field of leisure has therefore become more integrated with other fields of research (Hederson, Presley, and Bialeschski, 2004; Blackshaw, 2010). This empirical study conducts a literature and research review of preferred leisure activities at summer resorts in different countries in order to compose a list of leisure attributes of summer destination product, examines and defines the importance of various leisure attributes of the destination product according to the holiday makers in the destination, identifies the leisure attributes’ impact on the tourists’ feelings with regard to their social-economic, national, gender, and age characteristics. For the purposes of operationalization of destination product leisure attributes, a list of leisure activities is developed which concerns only the augmented product of the destination without the basic components of the tourist product, the accommodation and eating facilities of the hotels. The sample type constructed for the purposes of this empirical study is a random sample from six countries, Germany, UK, Russia, Finland, Hungary, and Poland, which represent nearly 90% of the tourists coming to Sunny beach resort in Bulgaria. The data collection methods are descriptive, including personal written questionnaires collected from the respondents and tourist diaries completed in two seasons by eighty tourists from four countries. They had to describe experiences with various leisure attributes of the destination product extracted from the questionnaire and to relate every experience with different emotions. The paper encompasses survey results and the main practical implication of the study is that the destination management can change its marketing strategy according to the survey results and namely to put stress in its branding strategy on shift from promotion based on physical attributes of destination product towards a strategy based on promotion of leisure attributes of the destination product which are provoking strong positive feelings in tourists, like happiness and excitement. This kind of destination branding strategy will contribute to the stimulation of active holiday behavior beyond the 3S-holiday model and will add more emotional benefits to the destination brand loyalty.