Stated and revealed preferences on gastronomic tourism in Santiago de CompostelaPHD Thesis

Zusammenfassung

The purpose of this research is to analyse why certain restaurants and tapas are preferred by tourists in Santiago de Compostela, what are the original preferences of restaurants and tapas for these tourists, what are the factors that influence a tourist’s preference and choice, and the differences in preferences of tourists from different groupings. As tapas are authentic to Spanish culture, and also an attraction of gastronomic tourism of Spain, the research focuses mainly on tapa preferences of tourists and on restaurants that provide them. The specific objectives of the thesis are as follows: 1. First, the research aims to provide a model of the three entities involved in the gastronomic domain, identifying the relationship between the entities and their attributes. The tourist, or user, is the primary entity. As the objects of experience, the tapa and the restaurant that offers it are the second entities. The situational or context variables are the third and final entities. The main purpose of the analysis is to find out the main attributes of these entities, and to classify them and analyse their relationship. For example, certain unique tourist attributes can be grouped into one class. These groupings or classes can further be used to test whether the preferences of the users within each group are similar to each other. 2. Second, the research aims to find out tourist preferences for restaurants that offer tapas. Therefore, it is important to know the main attributes of both restaurant and tourist entities. User attributes define the tourist classification. Restaurant attributes will give a clear picture of tourist preferences of restaurants in Santiago de Compostela, commonly known as Santiago. Based on the first objective, restaurants can be arranged into groups depending on a variety of attributes. By creating different groups of restaurants based on these attributes, it will be easier to understand the preferences and choices of the tourists. These restaurant attributes can be combined with those of tourists to provide a connection between the two entities. 3. Third, the research aims to identify tourist tapa preferences. As stated in the first objective, the tapa attributes will explain tourist typology preferences for tapas. The tapas can be grouped into different groupings depending on their attributes. With these groupings of tapas, the research intends to find out the relationship between tourist classes and their preferences for tapa groupings. 4. Last, the research aims to find out external attributes that influence tourist preference, choice and satisfaction. These external attributes are context or situational variables. It is important to identify whether these variables influence tourist preferences. These attributes are out of the tourist’s direct control, but depending on them, the offer can be changed accordingly to achieve higher satisfaction. If context variables influence choices, then it would be useful to know that a tourist from a certain class can be grouped into another class depending on the context. This is why it is an important objective to identify the influence of context attributes on the preference, choice, and satisfaction of the tourist.