Consumer preferences for cultural heritage and tourism e-sevices: A case study of three European cities

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a marketing study aimed at discovering consumer preferences for the e-services in European cultural destinations. Our results are central to eliciting potential consumers’ preferences for tourism and cultural heritage-related e-services. The paper is based on the analysis of user surveys conducted by the authors within the ISAAC EU-funded project in Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig in 2007-2009. Three types of consumers were contacted: residents, visitors and (cultural heritage) service providers. Our results provide a number of important recommendations for the design of e-tourism ICT platforms in European cities. The ICT platforms constitute a new market product, representing a novel approach to increasing the revenues from incoming tourism. The recommendations suggest priorities to ensure that the information system will most readily meet potential consumers’ needs.

Keywords

• consumer preferences
• marketing
• tourism economics
• cultural heritage
• e-services