Proximity tourism and culturalamenities: Evidence froma regional museum card
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[1] University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
Reino Unido
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[2] University of Turin
University of Turin
Torino, Italia
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- Localización: Tourism economics: the business and finance of tourism and recreation, ISSN 1354-8166, Vol. 27, Nº. 1, 2021, págs. 187-204
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
- Dialnet Métricas: 3 Citas
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Resumen
Although cultural tourism has generated extensive literature, it has often overlooked proximitytourism practices and the determinants of visits to near-home cultural amenities, often located inrural destinations with lower market appeal. This article investigates visiting behaviors and char-acteristics of intra-regional flows from urban settings toward museums and heritage sites located insurrounding areas. We use a unique transactional data set of about 76,000 subscribers to a regionalmuseum card in Piedmont (Italy) to analyze visiting patterns in the 2011–2014 period from the cityof Turin to out-of-town cultural institutions. Our empirical analysis shows that being male, havinglower socioeconomic status, visiting home-based museums, and loyalty to the card program arethe most relevant factors explaining propensity to out-of-town visits. At the same time, a clearpolarization of visits between a limited number of cultural attractors and the tail of minor heritagesites suggests that differences in museum characteristics can generate distinct motivations for visitsto the two types of cultural institutions. From a policy perspective, although a definitive evaluationof the effect of the museum card on proximity tourism cannot be undertaken, findings suggest thatbundle of minor attractions and major urban museums can generate indirect network advantages,foster cultivation of taste, and eventually stimulate both the demand for regional destinations andthe development of original cultural programs.
