Identification of common city characteristics influencing room occupancy
International Journal of Tourism Cities
ISSN: 2056-5607
Article publication date: 2 May 2019
Issue publication date: 3 December 2019
Abstract
Purpose
National tourism offices worldwide implement marketing strategies to influence tourists’ choices. However, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to choosing a city as a tourism destination. The purpose of this paper is to answer which are the characteristics that play a key role in room occupancy.
Design/methodology/approach
Diverse characteristics such as the city offer, demographics, natural amenities (e.g. number of beaches) and also politics (e.g. type of government) are combined into a decision tree model to unveil the relevance of each in determining room occupancy. The empirical experiments used data known in 2015 from 43 cities from Europe and the rest of the World to model room occupancy rate in 2016.
Findings
While the seasonality effect plays the most significant role, other less studied features such as the type of political party prior to current government were found to have an impact in room occupancy.
Originality/value
This study unveiled that center–right and right governments are generally more sensitive to promote its city as a tourism destination.
Keywords
Citation
Moro, S. and Rita, P. (2019), "Identification of common city characteristics influencing room occupancy", International Journal of Tourism Cities, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 482-490. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-08-2018-0063
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, International Tourism Studies Association