https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7603-9476
ABSTRACT
This study evaluates the effectiveness of decentralizing tourists by promoting alternative local-guided tours. Results from a discrete choice experiment among young travellers indicate that while culinary tours are preferred over central attractions, overall, young visitors demonstrated a strong tendency to visit the main attractions. Furthermore, tours labelled as sustainable were perceived as less attractive. The study implies that inter-city dispersal strategies that rely on ‘soft interventions’ may only be effective among certain individuals and are unlikely to lead to substantial changes in tourist behaviour. For dispersal strategies to be effective, local authorities should consider developing comprehensive tourism attractions and amenities.
Introduction
The growing demand for urban tourism, mainly concentrated around cities’ main attractions, leads, in many cases, to negative externalities in these areas. Various strategies and policy tools have been considered by policymakers in order to disperse tourists away from the central tourist areas, allowing for more sustainable tourism growth. To date, tourist dispersal relies on congestion management methods and includes two main strategies: Implementation of fiscal tools, mainly taxes and restrictions on tourist volume; and ‘soft’ interventions aimed at dispersing visitors’ congestion over time and space (Hunt, Citation2018; Massy-Beresford, Citation2022). A recently suggested intervention of the latter type is the promotion of alternative, ‘live like a local’, activities that introduce tourists to less central locations and which may reduce the pressure on the central attractions (Seeler et al., Citation2021). A prominent example of this type of activity is alternative tours, designed to provide a ‘real’ representation of the city's daily life, initiated by destinations worldwide to meet the increasing demand for authentic experiences.
So far, there has been little empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of dispersal strategies. The biggest concern of policymakers is that tourist dispersal has an inherent flaw that defies the highly clustered geographical pattern of tourists around the main attractions. This paper seeks to address the need for more targeted empirical research that evaluates the potential of soft intervention strategies and, more particularly, of alternative local-guided walking tours to disperse tourists away from the central attractions and support more sustainable urban tourism.
Tourists’ decisions to attend a particular attraction are influenced by both the attraction's features and the tourist's personal characteristics and preferences. Based on a review of websites that offer alternative guided tours and interviews with tour guides, we have identified the most prominent tour features, including tour type (i.e. cultural tour, food tour, history tour), price and experience type (mass or local/authentic). It is also hypothesized that attractions marketed as environmentally friendly (e.g. using a green label) may lead to more favourable tourist attitudes (Patwary et al., Citation2022). Tourist's personal characteristics, including (1) familiarity with the destination (repeat visitation); (2) personality traits, including sensation-seeking level and core values (Schwartz, Citation1992); (3) travel motivations; and (4) socio-demographic characteristics, are hypothesized to moderate the choice of local-guided tours. For example, repeat visitors are more likely to choose local attractions since they tend to search for authentic and unique experiences during their vacations (McKercher et al., Citation2012). Similarly, the literature also suggests that certain personality traits, such as being more allocentric or sensation-seeking, positively affect one's preference for alternative attractions (Martínez Suárez et al., Citation2021), and that ‘self-transcendence’ personality is associated with environment-friendly choices in tourism (Hedlund, Citation2011).
Methodology
The influence of the above-mentioned characteristics on visitors’ choice of guided tours was tested using a discrete choice experiment (study was approved by the Social Sciences ethics committee at the Hebrew University). We decided to focus on a sample of young adults, who are considered susceptible to strategies encouraging ‘local’ and sustainable tourism options and are more likely to choose alternative, more sustainable tourism options (Giachino et al., Citation2022; Kim & Park, Citation2020; Monaco, Citation2018). A discrete choice questionnaire was disseminated among a convenience sample of 261 Israeli students that were presented with a hypothetical tour to Berlin on an online survey (average age 23.6, 46% female, 40% previously visited Berlin). Participants were asked to choose their favourite tour out of four alternatives that varied in their attributes (tour theme (must see, culinary, Jewish history, street art); experience type; sustainability level and cost, see ). The choice task was presented five times, each with varying alternatives. This was followed by socio-demographic questions; widely accepted personality/values inventories that were found to influence tourists’ choices while on vacation; respondents’ travelling motivation, and familiarity (number of visits) with the destination (see supplementary materials for more information on the questionnaire and sample characteristics). Berlin was chosen as our destination due to its popularity among young Israelis and its image as a destination suggesting a selection of alternative attractions. These properties are expected to enhance the ecological validity of the study. A mixed logit analysis was employed (see supplementary materials) to estimate the willingness to pay for each attribute (Train, Citation2002). We allowed for heterogeneous preferences for tour attributes. Thus, the coefficients, except that of the cost, are assumed to have an independent normal distribution. We also included interaction terms with the participants’ characteristics (e.g. previous visits, travel preference, personal values).
Table 1. Discrete choice experiments attributes and price levels.
Results
Tourist preferences for local alternative tours
presents the results of our three mixed logit models. Model 1 includes the main effects of the tour attributes, while Models 2 and 3 include the interaction effects with repeat visitation and self-transcendence, respectively. Other potential factors (interactions) that did not demonstrate a robust effect (e.g. sensation-seeking level and travel motivation) were not included in the final models.
Table 2. Mixed logit models.
The mean coefficients of the tours’ themes indicate that tourists to Berlin would prefer the must-see tour over the history tour and prefer the guided culinary tour over the must-see tour; they would be indifferent about taking guided art tours. The standard deviation of the random parameters (second column of each model) was significant for the tour themes, indicating heterogeneity across participants regarding this attribute.
Model 2 indicates that repeat visitors to Berlin mostly have a positive attitude towards local alternative tours but negative attitudes towards tours labelled as green. Similarly, the positive and significant interactions in Model 3 imply that participants with high scores in the self-transcendence personality scale prefer alternative tour themes and local, more authentic, experiences. Despite the expectation that they would also be more environmentally concerned, they did not favour the more sustainable green option.
Participants’ willingness to pay was calculated based on the three models presented above (see detailed tables in the supplementary materials). As expected, repeat visitors are willing to pay a higher price for the alternative tours’ themes (€14.4, €5.4, €12.3 more for culinary, Jewish history, and street art, respectively) compared to first-time visitors. Tourists with high levels of self-transcendence values are also willing to pay a higher price for alternative tours (€6.65, €8.10, €8.70 more, to culinary, Jewish history, and street art, respectively) and for the local-guided tour (€2.5 more). Finally, a negative willingness to pay was calculated for green-labelled tours, both among repeat visitors (€3.05 less) and tourists with high levels of self-transcendence values (€1.90 less).
Discussion
Our results indicate that even young tourists, who are expected to prefer local and sustainable travel experiences are more likely to prefer central attractions, with the exception of guided culinary tours. The study shows that preferences for local tours are heterogeneous and depend, at least to some extent, on personal characteristics. In our study, participants’ familiarity with the destination and their self-transcendence personalities were positively correlated with more favourable attitudes towards peripheral local tours. These findings suggest that only participants with distinct characteristics are likely to display a positive attitude towards alternative tours, while the majority of tourists tend to choose the typical, ‘must see’ tour. Another key finding concerns participants’ preferences for green products. Despite the literature suggesting that young adults are environmentally conscious, our results indicate that young tourists are indifferent, or even have negative demand, for green-labelled tours while travelling. These findings correspond with previous studies that have shown that one of the main barriers to purchase a sustainable product is the perception of green products as being ‘weak’, with lower functional performance in comparison to non-sustainable products (Dangelico & Vocalelli, Citation2017; Luchs et al., Citation2010). In addition, marketing tourist products as environmentally friendly may prove ineffective in tourism because a vacation is perceived as a one-time event, which encourages hedonic behaviour (Font & McCabe, Citation2017).
This study has several managerial implications. Results emphasize that overall, promotion of alternative tours as a strategy to disperse tourists in the city is likely to have a limited impact. This means that soft interventions such as local guided tours are not likely to lead to a substantial change in tourist concentration in the centre when used alone. To make dispersal strategies more effective, there is probably a need to develop more substantial alternative attractions. To do that local authorities should allocate more resources and develop large clusters of attractions and amenities that will attract tourists with diverse preferences. However, more research is required to evaluate and determine if such comprehensive investments can indeed change traditional market demands for central attractions.
The study has several limitations that should be noted and addressed in the future. First, our sample was consisted of a rather small, homogenous sample of Israeli students. However, the students were sampled in two different periods while demonstrating very similar preferences. Another main limitation is that the study relied on self-reported preference rather than actual behaviour. Nevertheless, we expect actual behaviours to be even less sustainable than the ones reported. Several interesting issues remain for future research. Since the city of Berlin presents a scattered distribution of tourism clusters, future studies should examine different types of locations, with a more concentrated centre, as well as other characteristics of the selected destination. It also seems possible that a combination of several strategies could fare best in catering to various tourist traits and cultures. Thus, future works could study how different dispersal strategies can be combined to encourage more sustainable tourist behaviour.
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