Segmenting tourists by expenditure patterns: An instrument for enhancing tourism economic benefits on a Portuguese World Heritage site

Abstract

Tourism is an activity with high potential for stimulating the development of local economies, with different types of visitors having distinct environmental, social and economic effects on destinations (Lundie, Dwyer, & Forsyth, 2007; Nickerson, Jorgenson, & Boley, 2016). Notwithstanding, there is a research gap on strategies aimed at maximizing the economic relevance of tourism for local tourism destinations using market segmentation, based on visitors’ daily expenditure level at the destination, as a starting point (Lima, Eusébio, & Kastenholz, 2012). This gap becomes more evident when we refer to World Heritage Sites (WHS) destinations (Amir, Osman, Bachok, & Ibrahim, 2016). This study presents the results of the tourist market segmentation of a Portuguese municipality - Évora, a UNESCO’s WHS, located in Alentejo. The study aims to identify the homogenous groups of visitors that prevail in a WHS destination based on expenditure patterns and furthermore at contributing to the development of marketing strategies to enhance the economic development of this cultural destination.