Expenditure Patterns by Travel Party Size: British and German Tourists on Crete, Greece

ABSTRACT

Inbound visitors are the largest group of tourists to Crete, Greece. Given the importance of inbound pleasure tourism, a deeper understanding of expenditure patterns is vital for policy planners and destination marketers. Using the 2003 Exit Survey data, this study investigates the spending behaviour of British and German pleasure visitors to Crete. The analysis of two key variables—nationality and travel party size—were found to make a significant contribution to explaining expenditure level variations (p<.05), and have a considerable influence on expenditure distribution and spending patterns. These findings could be used for expenditure-based segmentation; policy and marketing implications are also derived.

Key words:

• expenditure patterns
• German and British pleasure tourists
• travel party size
• Analysis of Variance
• Duncan's test
• Crete