The importance of attributes related to physical activity for the tourism product's utility

Abstract

Recent worldwide tourism trends reveal increased public interest in travel centered on values connected to the human body, such as health and fitness. In commercial terms, this calls for the development of tourism packages whose structure would meet the tourists' needs and desires related to various forms of physical activity by providing them with opportunities to participate. However, few scholars have conducted empirical studies to identify factors determining the utility of such products from the perspective of consumers. This article is intended to fill this gap. It was assumed here that the inclusion of physical activity into tourism packages would generate for the tourists unique features including the opportunity to exhibit courage, testing one's psychological and physical abilities, rivalry, adventure, access to sports and leisure facilities, experiencing risk to one's health or life, and contact with nature. Subsequently, the actual importance of these attributes for the utility of tourism packages was measured using conjoint analysis for a population of Cracow students, who tend to be active tourists. It was found that respondents prefer tourism packages characterized by high levels of all of the above-mentioned attributes except for risk. At the same time, they pay more attention to components forming the actual level of the products than to the experiences arising from the consumption of those components.

Keywords:

• Physical Activity
• Tourism Package
• Consumer Preferences
• College Students
• Utility
• Conjoint analysis

Acknowledgement

The study was financed with a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2009–2010 as a research project: ‘The role of physical culture in the value creation of a tourism product’ (no. N N112 018636).