Acceptance of Tourist Offers and Territory: Cluster Analysis of Ibiza Residents (Spain)

Abstract

Heterogeneity studies have analyzed different clusters of residents according to their perception and attitude toward tourism in general or a specific type of tourism, but there are still no studies on the heterogeneity in the acceptance of tourist offers. The aim of this article was to segment residents according to their acceptance of different tourist offers focused on the territory. This is a new approach that seeks to determine the profiles of residents based on their preferences for the future development of a destination’s offer in order to solve land-related problems. Cluster analysis carried out by the K-means algorithm made it possible to create five clusters: Disappointed, favorable with nuances, moderate, enthusiasts but anti-nightclub, and enthusiasts. The clusters were characterized by the rejection of the “all inclusive” offer and by the acceptance of most offers. The types of tourism that involve an enhancement of the landscape and heritage were shown to be the best valued. The differences between the clusters were marked by the degree of general acceptance and by the rejection of some offers considered “conflicting.” The offers that imply a high consumption of land (golf courses) or annoyances from the immediate surroundings (nightclubs) generated discrepancies.

The Society’s Heterogeneity Regarding Attitudes towards Tourism: A Cluster Analysis of the Ibiza Residents

“…Enthusiastic Supporters are characterized by giving enormous importance to positive impacts and minimizing negative impacts by receiving important benefits from tourism, and they are mostly people who come from outside the island. Enthusiastic Supporters are like absolute supporters [30], development supporters [40,52,62], embracers [39], enthusiasts (e.g., [29,36,41,58,59]), favorers [17], lovers (e.g., [5,24,47,49,57]), optimists [31,45,54] and supporters (e.g., [44,46,56,60,70]) in previous…”

“…One of the first published segmentations is a study conducted on the Sleat peninsula (Isle of Skye) in Scotland [21][22][23]. Since then, studies have been carried out in various regions of the world: Australia [24][25][26][27][28], Brazil [29], Cambodia [30], Cape Verde [31], China [32][33][34][35][36], Croatia [37], Greece [38,39], Italy [17,[40][41][42][43][44], Malaysia [45], Mexico [46], New Zealand [5,[47][48][49], Portugal [50], Senegal [51], Spain [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61], Sweden [62], Türkiye [63], United Kingdom [21][22][23]…”

“…In a study carried out in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain), three representative profiles were obtained for two scenarios: extreme tourist lovers, extreme tourist haters, and ambivalents; lovers, haters, and ambivalents [57]. In a study that analyzed the different residents' assessments of the types of tourists offered in Ibiza (Spain), the authors found five clusters: disappointed, favorable with nuances, moderate, enthusiasts but anti-nightclub, and enthusiasts [59]. Ramon et al [58] compared the residents' attitudes in Ibiza (Spain) and Punta del Este (Uruguay), obtaining four groups: enthusiasts, moderates, critics, and negatives.…”

“…The most enthusiastic supporters go by different names. Absolute supporters [30], development supporters [40,52,62], embracers [39], enthusiastic supporters [33], enthusiasts (e.g., [29,36,41,58,59]), favorers [17], lovers (e.g., [5,24,47,49,57]), optimists [31,45,54], supporters (e.g., [44,46,56,60,70]), etc. Detractors are called critics [36,41,42,49,58], cynics [5], haters [24,47,57,64,67], naysayers [45], opponents [27,28,56], opposers [17,60], pessimists [54,70], protectionists [40,52], skeptics [29,62], somewhat irritated …”