Factors Affecting Time Spent Visiting Heritage City Areas

Urban tourism is growing fast, and in many cities visitor influx tends to concentrate in historic urban centers. When there are large numbers of visitors, deepening the knowledge on visitor time consumption is critical to better managing their impact on the city, and creating a sustainable city tour...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Martínez Garcia, Esther, Raya Vílchez, José María, Galí Espelt, Núria
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2018
Country:España
Institution:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repository:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10256/15552
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10256/15552
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Turisme sostenible
Sustainable tourism
Turisme urbà
Tourisme urbain
Description
Summary:Urban tourism is growing fast, and in many cities visitor influx tends to concentrate in historic urban centers. When there are large numbers of visitors, deepening the knowledge on visitor time consumption is critical to better managing their impact on the city, and creating a sustainable city tourism destination. This has generated an increasing interest in the micro-spatial and temporal dimensions of tourist behavior in city tourism research and planning. This article focuses on modelling the factors affecting the duration of visits to each heritage attraction, and to the whole visit to the heritage city. This study adds to previous research in several ways: it uses survival models; distinguishes between attractions with and without an entrance fee; and tests how visitor type affects time behavior, for example, day visitor versus tourists, peak season versus off-peak season, informed visitors versus non-informed visitors, highly motivated visitors versus visitors with low motivation. Results show that there is significant heterogeneity in time consumption. This is generated by factors such as traveling with children, cultural proximity, rating of the attraction, and price and time constraints. Some evidence is also found, which suggests first-time visitor and informed visitors have an impact on time consumption