Residents’ attitudes towards nightlife supply: A comparison of Ibiza (Spain) and Punta del Este (Uruguay)

Abstract

In coastal tourist destinations, there is nightlife, in addition to daytime leisure. For tourism development, it is of great relevance to take into account the resident population and their attitudes. In this paper, a comparison is made between Ibiza (Spain) and Punta del Este (Uruguay) in relation to the residents’ attitudes towards nightlife. Specifically, the comparison is made by a descending cluster analysis, generating four groups of residents according to their attitudes (Enthusiasts, Moderates, Critics, and Negatives), and the distribution of these groups in the two regions is then compared. The most notable result is that the degree of acceptance of nightlife is low in both cases, possibly due to the problems attributed to it, but the score is slightly higher in the case of Punta del Este. In addition, the profile of those opposed to nightlife is different: In Ibiza, Critics predominate, with a generally contrary response, but recognizing positive elements, whilst in Punta del Este, Negatives predominate, with systematically negative responses to all items.

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

“…The segmentation carried out shows similarities and differences with previous works of the same nature carried out in various destinations around the world. The main similarity with other studies (e.g., [5,24,33,36,41,45,47,52,58,70]) is that in all of them, the presence of two clusters is detected: defenders and detractors. Both clusters always appear, although in different proportions.…”

“…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 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. In relation to overtourism, a study carried out in Barcelona (Spain) identified three types of residents: tourism supporters, tourism-opposed residents, and neutral residents [56].…”

“…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 …”