engleski

Market profile of cultural tourists : A case of city of Zagreb

City tourism, tourism in cities or short break is the third most important type of holiday trips of Europeans, following ‘sun and beach’ and ‘touring’. City tourism accounts for more than one-third of the total European outbound trip volume and has been constantly growing during the last two decades. In 2009 a decline was recorded due to the global economic crisis. In the course of slight economic recovery, Europeans made 9% more city trips in 2011 (IPK International, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011) showing more resilience to the economic crisis than other forms of tourism. A number of European cities that are selecting tourism as a strategic activity for local development is also constantly increasing making the global environment for city tourism development more and more challenging. In order to be successful at that competitive market, it is extremely important for cities to monitor their visitor characteristics. This paper is presenting a longitudinal survey on attitudes and expenditures of tourists and same-day visitors of City of Zagreb, the Croatian capital. The survey has been conducting since 1998, and in 2012 was conducted for the sixth time, interviewing 1, 832 Zagreb’s visitors. As a continuous survey it detects the trends in visitors’ profile, trip characteristics, satisfaction with Zagreb tourism product, and spending pattern. Due to the uniform survey methods, aligned with the recommendations of the European Cities Marketing network, survey results also enable comparison of tourism demand between Zagreb and other European cities. Particularly, this paper is focused on the profile of culture motivated tourism demand of city of Zagreb and its’ difference in comparison to other segments of visitors. Chi-square test and nonparametric Wilcoxon rank sum test were used to test the differences in characteristics between the two demand segments. The results revealed that slightly more than every fifth tourist and same-day visitor in Zagreb in 2012 is motivated by visiting Zagreb’s cultural attractions and events. The figure more than doubled compared to the period prior to 2003. Culture motivated visitors, compared to other segments, are slightly older on average, more educated and with a higher income. They are also more likely to be in Zagreb for the first time, more often accompanied by a partner only, and more often search for the information on Zagreb tourism offer through the brochures, printed tourist guides and internet. Their stay in Zagreb is slightly longer on average and they are much more active in touring the city of Zagreb and its’ surroundings. However, they are also more critical in the assessment of the quality of Zagreb's cultural offer. The obtained results increase the knowledge on cultural tourism demand of city of Zagreb and provide the quality information base for future Zagreb cultural product development, and, subsequently, the improvement of Zagreb competitive position at cultural city tourism market.

city tourism ; Zagreb ; longitudinal visitor survey ; cultural tourists ; market profile

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