Tourists' preferences for stargazing land resources

Abstract

Stargazing tourism is an expanding market niche that requires the development of territorial resources for its implementation and attraction. This paper’s objective is to investigate the preferences and willingness to pay of tourists for the development of strategic land resources for stargazing tourism activities. The field work was conducted on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands), which is promoting the territorial development of infrastructures for stargazing tourism. A random sample of 734 tourists were interviewed in person on-site in December 2019 following the methodology discrete choice experiments that enabled an estimation of tourists’ preferences and willingness to pay for the implementation of key land resources for stargazing. The data are modeled using a latent class model that allows for the consideration of heterogeneous preferences. The results show that there are three groups of tourists with different preferences for land resources of stargazing observation. These segments are respectively related to the interests in culture, active, and astronomic tourism. Those tourists in the active stargazing segment share the largest proportion of the market and favor the implementation of facilities that allow the combination of active tourism with stargazing. The results are useful for land product development and territorial strategies aimed at positioning destinations in the identified demand niches of stargazing tourism.