engleski

Assessment of destination’s tourism offering in the off-season

Purpose – This paper presents tourist attitudes regarding the off-season tourism offering of Rijeka and the Opatija Riviera, a seaside destination hosting about 2.2 million overnight stays per year. Since more than 54% of these stays are concentrated in the summer season, the destination is facing an issue of high seasonality. Therefore, an active approach is required that would result in higher tourist satisfaction in the off-season and bring about seasonality smoothing. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to examine tourist perceptions of the tourism offering in the off-season with an emphasis on identifying the critical destination attributes that need to be improved. In that context, creative approach in creating tourism offering should be taken in terms of more appealing and innovative but still authentic tourism products. Design – A tourist on-site survey was conducted from January to May 2016. The assessment was carried out on a sample of 358 tourists who visited this destination. Methodology – Descriptive statistical analysis was performed on the socioeconomic, demographic and travel- related characteristic variables to obtain frequencies. T-test was performed to find out whether there are any significant differences between importance and satisfaction levels for each of the 22 attributes. IPA was performed to identify the critical performance factors that need to be addressed. Findings – T- test results confirmed that the majority of attributes of the destination offering (19 out of 22 attributes) have statistically significant negative gap scores indicating that satisfaction with those attributes is less than their importance to the respondents. IPA analysis produced fairly clear implications for management in the case of Rijeka and the Opatija Riviera in the offseason. Originality of the research – In this field of research, the novelty lies in investigating satisfaction with a variety of attributes of Rijeka and the Opatija Riviera’s offering during the off-season.

tourist satisfaction, tourism offering, off-season, IPA

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