Abstract

Tourism contributes to GDP and employment; therefore, several countries manage tourism resources using an R&D + I strategy (research and development of innovative methodologies). Thus, market segmentation adjusts tourism offer to consumers’ needs/preferences. Post hoc segmentation strategy has important advantages over a priori segmentation, allowing better adjustment of supply to tourists’ preferences. This paper illustrates the advantages of combined use of the conjoint analysis and cluster analysis when segmenting the tourist market - post hoc -according to consumers’ preferences. From the results, we identify six different clusters and the most important attributes are weather and price.

Key words: Market research, post hoc segmentation, conjoint analysis, cluster analysis, tourist preferences.