Third International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Tourism is an activity based on the trips made by people traveling away from their usual place of residence. Therefore, understanding the movements made by visitors during their trips has been of interest for research for years. In fact, recent investigations have managed to track visitors through the destinations employed various techniques, such as GPS devices, photographs uploaded to different websites or surveys. Knowing how visitors move makes possible to know which places are really visited by tourists and the means of transport and itineraries they use to connect the visits done during a trip. However, the previous research carried out seems not to have considered the differences presented by visitors, which motivate them to travel and visit different places during their trips. In this study, we intend to know which are the determinants that motivate tourists to visit some places instead of others in Lanzarote. To carry out the analysis, the answers given by 43,301 visitors between 2010 and 2016 have been used. In these surveys, visitors were asked about various socioeconomic characteristics, their motivations to travel and characteristics of the trip made. In addition, surveys include a question regarding the visit of 12 attractions on the island. Thanks to this information, it has been possible to use discrete choice models to know which are the determining variables that motivate tourists to visit a given set of points of interest instead of others.