Exploring the concept of perceived sustainability at tourist destinations: a market segmentation approach

ABSTRACT

The concept of sustainability as perceived by tourists has rarely been studied and much less considered as a basis for segmentation. This article provides a conceptual framework based on tourists’ perception of sustainability policies at destinations and a multidimensional measure for this construct. An empirical analysis at five Mediterranean destinations validated the conceptual proposal and provided empirical evidence for the potential use of perceived sustainability in segmentation studies. Our findings show the discriminating power of the construct, identifying four latent clusters. Perceived sustainability as a tool for segmentation can help analyze the effectiveness of sustainability strategies and action taken.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived sustainability
• conceptual framework
• multidimensionality
• tourist
• destination
• segmentation
• sustainability strategies
• latent class analysis
• Latent Gold
• Mediterranean region

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport [AICO/2017/120]; and by the European Union [IB/1.3/561].