Inbound Tourists in Italy: An Analysis of Individual Satisfaction in the Main Italian Destinations

Abstract

The present work aims at bringing about an empirical analysis of the inbound tourism market in Italy, from the perspective of the individual tourist. We analyze more than a million satisfaction judgments, retrieved from the extensive survey by the Central Bank of Italy, spanning the period 1997-2013, focusing on the visitors’ socio-demographic and trip-related characteristics Moreover, following the Multi-Attribute Level approach and the Importance-Performance interpretative framework, satisfaction is proposed as a measure to evaluate tourism areas’ attractiveness and the performances of destinations’ assets