Demand for the Quality Conservation of Venice, Italy, According to Different Nationalities

Abstract

This paper focuses on visitor demand for the quality conservation of Venice according to different nationalities. The vast majority of visitors to Venice are foreigners (both tourists and day-visitors) who come from all over the world. In this research they are mainly categorized as non-Italian Europeans or non-Europeans. A specific theoretical model, in which quality conservation is provided publicly and also privately through donations, is presented for nationals and for foreigners. The data are obtained from a contingent valuation survey carried out in Venice, the aim of which was to estimate visitors' willingness to donate (WTD) to the Venice flood defence programme. Demand functions are estimated by applying a twostage regression model. The authors show that the majority of visitors are willing to donate. On average, Italians and nonEuropeans would donate more than non-Italian Europeans. As expected, these visitor categories have different mean WTD and different behavioural functions which are affected by attitudinal and economic variables. Bequest value is the main donation motive. Those who identify this as a donation motive, on average, state the highest WTD and the highest degree of certainty to donate. This result seems to confirm empirically the validity of the sustainable development principle applied to the management of Venice as a cultural tourist site.

Tourists' Expenditure Behaviour: The Influence of Satisfaction and the Dependence of Spending Categories

“…Customer satisfaction has, finally, been seen as an indicator of destination competitiveness and performance (Enright and Newton, 2004;Alegre and Garau, 2010;Munier and Camelis, 2013). As reported by Neal and Gursoy (2008), most satisfaction studies are based on expectation and perception models (Oliver, 1980), cognitive evaluation (Klaus, 1985;Chadee and Mattsson, 1996), congruity models (Sirgy, 1984), equity models (Oliver and Swan, 1989) and perceived overall performance (Fuchs and Weiermair, 2004;Thompson and Schofield, 2007). So far the issue of customer satisfaction, consumer expenditure and consequently firms' economic benefits remains only partially examined and Anderson (1996), Anderson et al (1994Anderson et al ( , 1997 and Anderson and Mittal (2000) can be considered the pioneers in studies related to the link between customer satisfaction and profitability.…”

“…However, in that respect, it is important to note that loyalty might not be as important to destinations as it is for other businesses or services (Kozak and Rimmington, 2000). Although past studies (Oliver and Burke, 1999;Hui et al, 2007) have demonstrated that tourists' overall level of satisfaction with the destination influences the intention to revisit, the dis/satisfaction with various components of the holiday experience (pre-trip services, services at the destination, transit route services) leads to overall dis/satisfaction (Neal and Gursoy, 2008), influencing future intentions (Kozak and Rimmington, 2000). Furthermore, although loyal customers mean more customers in general, lower impact of price fluctuations and less cost for the firm in attracting new customers due to positive word of mouth, in an industry, like tourism, affected by fixed capacity, are loyal (repeat) customers more likely to spend more at the destination?…”

“…Satisfaction has been analysed in terms of satisfaction with the single services/products at the destination, with the destination, and with the holiday/trip as a whole. Although most satisfaction studies concentrate on single aspects of the tourism experience, it has been argued that satisfaction in tourism should be studied as a system process, in which the several stages of the trip (pre-trip services, services at the destination and transit route services) are analysed collectively (Neal and Gursoy, 2008). In the tourism and hospitality industry satisfaction has been further investigated for controllable items, such as standard of the services offered, cleanliness, availability of information and prices, and for uncontrollable items such as culture, scenery and weather.…”

“…Recent applications of the Heckman model include Alegre et al's (2013) application to tourism participation and expenditure by Spanish households, and Jang and Ham's (2009) application to leisure travellers' expenditure, distinguishing between baby boomer senior households and older senior households in the USA. Finally, the double-hurdle model estimated by means of the Heien and Wessells two-step estimator has been adopted by Marzetti and Disegna (2012), Brida et al (2012;2013a), and Brida et al (2013b).…”