TOURIST CHARACTERISTICS AS DETERMINANTS OF DESTINATION EXPERIENCE: EVIDENCE FROM SERBIA

Abstract

Tourists’ socio-demographic and travel-related characteristics, such as travel companion or previous visits to the destination, play an important role in tailoring tourism offering to attract specific tourist segments. The principal aim of the present research was to examine whether differences exist in tourists’ perception of emotional experience, destination personality and place attachment. The study sample consisted of Serbian tourists who visited the coastal tourist destination of Paralia, Greece. A total of 304 respondents participated in the survey research, which was conducted in July 2019, and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed to test the research hypotheses. The main findings indicated that female tourists expressed higher levels of emotional experience, perceived the visited destination through the prism of personality traits to a greater extent, and developed stronger place attachment compared to their male counterparts. Also, statistically significant differences across the investigated constructs were identified based on respondents’ age, education level, occupation status, monthly income, and previous visits to the destination. The practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.