Pregledni rad
Accommodation portfolio and market differentiation: The case of Aruba
Haime Croes
; Urban & Regional Research Centre Utrecht, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Sažetak
The island of Aruba just north of Venezuela has become one of the most prosperous small islands in the world due to tourist expansion as a strategy for economic growth. To develop its tourist sector Aruba has successfully relied on international hotel chains to open up the North American market. The downside of this success is the reliance on a single market which makes the island economically vulnerable. Another drawback of the international chains is that they typically cater for short-stay package tourists, contributing to the already dense air traffic to the island. A further uncontrolled expansion along these lines could imply that the island will develop into a mass tourism destination that is less attractive to the more affluent tourists. The literature on tourism destinations suggests that the tourist's choice is determined to a large extent by the accommodation on offer and that islands with more small and medium sized accommodation have a different and more stable clientele. If that is true, then the accommodation portfolio of the destination might be an important tool to arrive at market differentiation. The results confirm the hypothesis that each type of accommodation attracts its own clientele. These outcomes give support to a policy aimed at diversifying the accommodation portfolio in order to arrive at market differentiation. Half of the accommodation on Aruba is locally owned. Managed growth of this type of accommodation could contribute to a better market mix and to an increase in the share of long-stay tourists on the island.
Ključne riječi
market differentiation; length of stay; purpose of visit; geographical market; CHAID; Aruba
Hrčak ID:
36611
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.6.2008.
Posjeta: 1.928 *