Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2021, 67(7):266-276 | DOI: 10.17221/56/2021-AGRICECON

Inferring customer heterogeneity for rural tourism: A latent class approach based on a best-worst choice modellingOriginal Paper

Wookhyun An ORCID...*, Silverio Alarcón
Department of Agricultural Economics, Statistics and Business Management, School of Agricultural, Food and Biosystems Engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

This research aims to analyse customers' preference heterogeneity for rural tourism in Spain and explore their preferences' personal and socio-demographic factors. To achieve this purpose, latent class analysis with the best-worst choice modelling has been applied through conducting a survey on 452 customers in Madrid and Barcelona. The results show that there are five classes in the Spanish rural tourism market: 'all-around seeker', 'leisure activist', 'culture explorer', 'comfort-driven user', and 'basic value pursuer'. The contribution of this investigation is that it is the first study that applied the latent class analysis with best-worst choice modelling to explore customers' preference heterogeneity for rural tourism.

Keywords: customers' preference; heterogeneous choices; tourism experiences

Published: July 14, 2021  Show citation

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An W, Alarcón S. Inferring customer heterogeneity for rural tourism: A latent class approach based on a best-worst choice modelling. Agric. Econ. - Czech. 2021;67(7):266-276. doi: 10.17221/56/2021-AGRICECON.
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