رابطه بین انگیزش فشار و میزان مصرف فعالیت در مقصد در چارچوب یک کارت مقصد

This research analyses the influence of tourist’ psychological motivation visiting a destination on their actual travel behaviour and the use of this information for bundling tourism attractions and services in a destination card. The relation between push motivation and activity consumption at the destination is recognized in the literature. The paper extends this evidence by introducing activeness indicators measured according to the amount and type of activity participation normalized to the length of stay. Regarding destination cards the paper investigates, through the use of ordered logistic regressions, four requirements (monetary, timesaving, informational and customization), defined as the benefits of a card tourists may find important. The model results show a significant relation between card requirements and both activeness and motivation, suggesting that destination cards need to be based on natural and cultural attractions, whereas entertainment, sport and social activities can be only additional benefits on discounted price. The data has been collected in the Ticino region, Switzerland. The sample refers to 586 face to face interviews with tourists visiting the area.

Integration between destination marketing and management has been the focus point of a wide range of literature in tourism (Buhalis, 2000). Being on holiday, tourists are consuming a bundle of services, they perceive the destination as an integrated product. Therefore, implementing strategies to attract tourists cannot be realized by a single actor, but rather by means of common efforts of Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) and local operators. The importance of collaboration and the stakeholders’ involvement in policy making is frequently mentioned in the literature ( Palmer and Bejou, 1995, Bramwell and Sharman, 1999, Wang and Xiang, 2007, Wang, 2008 and Haugland et al., 2011). Different forms of tourism marketing alliances between the private and the public sectors are mutually beneficial for both; attracting more tourists can improve the financial results of private operators and can bring social enhancements to the public ones (Palmer & Bejou, 1995). Due to the variety of products involved in tourism and the differences in competences, implementing collaborations within a destination is a complex issue. The role of DMOs is to set strategic objectives for the operators at a destination and help to achieve their common goals (Buhalis, 2000). DMOs are increasingly involved in retailing function at a destination (Buhalis, 2000), however they usually do not promote individual products, but rather assist the interaction between the tourist and the suppliers. Destination cards are a good example of public–private initiatives in destination marketing and management, used as a marketing tool worldwide, at destinations of any size, with the aim of facilitating the visit of tourists in the production and consumption of their experience and therefore increase the usage of tourist services at a destination. In most cases, destination cards are dedicated to cities and include public transport and major attractions, while regional destination cards have more complex structures, especially when the region accommodates heterogeneous types of tourists, consuming different services. Destination cards are commonly issued by DMOs in collaboration with tourism stakeholders at the destination. Although integration in tourism marketing and management is often discussed in the literature, little research effort has so far been directed towards analysing their practical implication in terms of destination cards. The topic is investigated and described mainly in the German and Italian speaking context by Pechlaner and Zehrer (2005) and Martelloni (2007). This paper, being a part of the research project aimed to design a new destination card for canton Ticino, Switzerland, proposes an exploratory study of the topic. In particular, the objective is to profile tourists who can be interested in purchasing a regional destination card by investigating their purpose of visit and the activities they are undertaking at the destination. In order to reach this aim, multivariate statistical methods are proposed to analyse the destination cards in relation to motivation and activity consumption. Therefore, before looking at the effects on the card itself, the first topic to be tackled is the influence of psychological motivation of tourists to go on a specific holiday on their actual travel behaviour. A further aspect to be tackled is the understanding whether the tourist motivation, other than the socio-demographic profile, can help to define targeted services at the destination. Hence the relation between the motivation of taking a holiday and the involvement in holiday activities needs to be explored. The relation between push motivation and activities undertaken at the destination is recognized in the literature (Lee, O'Leary, Lee, & Morrison, 2002). This research aims to extend this evidence by introducing activeness indicators measured according to amount and frequency of participation, incorporating the length of stay. By analysing the level of activeness of tourists through their actual usage, we can better understand their engagement in activities available at the destination. Further on, knowing the intensity of usage of tourist activities during a holiday is very important to study destination cards. Hence the indicator of activeness is developed, tested with motivation components and used to reach the main objective of this research. Indeed, the main contribution to the tourism literature and practice is expected regarding the following aspects of destination cards: What are the most important requirements of regional destination cards? Which type of tourists value more important the different benefits derived from a destination card? What kind of attractions can be included in a destination card? Through exploratory factor analysis, ordinary least square and ordered logit regression techniques a survey dataset is analysed to answer these questions within the case of canton Ticino, Switzerland. The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 the literature concerning destination cards and the relation between motivation and activities is provided. Description of the data and method used are then outlined in Section 3, whereas results and the implications are proposed in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions of the research.

This paper has presented an empirical study on travel behaviour and destination cards. The potential theoretical contribution is twofold. First, the relation between the push motivation and activity participation constructs is further researched by introducing activeness indicators, which quantify the level of engagement in the different types of tourism activities. In fact the results stemming from the models indicate that the underlying dimension of motivation has a significant effect on the activeness of the tourist at the destination. Therefore, the activeness indicators proved to have similar results with motivation components as previous activity measures which were not normalized to the length of stay (Gitelson and Kerstetter, 1990, Gomez-Jacinto et al., 1999 and Lee et al., 2002). This results helped to develop the second and main contribution; the literature on destination cards and possible product bundling at a destination is enriched through analysing motivation, activeness and destination card requirements of tourists in an empirical research. Indeed, activeness and motivation are crucial for developing new destination cards as both have impacts on the requirements of tourists, as it is further suggested by the analysis presented in this study. Interestingly, tourists value most essentially the information on novelty aspects of destination cards. In this line, results also show that only tourists with higher consumption of culture and nature activities consider destination card requirements being important. This outcome is confirmed by the existing offer of destination cards and the definition by Martelloni (2007), as they mainly include cultural activities. The findings are helpful in terms of drawing policy implications for destination management organizations. Indeed, the results suggest that the creation of a destination card should be more and more based on behavioural studies in order to have tailor-made campaigns for specific segments, which would lead to more efficient use of marketing resources. Economic benefits can be generated from the proper facilitation of tourists experience, as tourists can get to know better the place, spend more of their time and income in the region. Moreover if they are more satisfied with their stay, there is a higher possibility that they will wish to revisit the destination. Further research in different regional destinations is suggested in order to support the finding that destination card requirements are only evaluated significantly important by tourists with high cultural-natural activity consumption. Regarding the methodology, additional investigation on the development of activeness indicators is suggested in order to support the measurement proposed or eventually to improve it. Moreover, as significant relationship is found among the constructs, further research could examine the hypotheses using structural equation modelling. By applying this method, the multiple and interrelated dependence could be estimated in one single analysis. Furthermore, research on developing tools and policies on how specific attractions can be selected for inclusion in a destination card would be interesting for destination management organizations. Finally, by analysing the data gathered from destination cards sold, a deeper understanding of the behaviour of cultural tourists could be derived.