Bozic, Sanja, Kennell, James ORCID: 0000-0002-7877-7843 , Vujicic, Miroslav D. and Jovanovic, Tamara (2017) Urban tourist motivations: why visit Ljubljana? International Journal of Tourism Cities, 3 (4). pp. 382-398. ISSN 2056-5607 (doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-03-2017-0012)

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Abstract

Purpose:
The aim of this paper is to develop a new perspective on urban tourist motivations by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model to help to understand how tourists make decisions about which destinations to visit.

Method:
This study was based on 30 1-hour long structured interviews with visitors to Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. Respondents were asked to express their preferences between different pull-factor motives for their visit, using Saaty’s scale, and further qualitative data was collected to examine these preferences in more depth.

Findings:
The results of this study indicate that the most relevant criteria and thus predominant factors in motivation for visits to Ljubljana are the Cultural and Nightlife pull-factors, while Religious and Business motives are the lowest ranked factors. The paper argues that the results show the value of applying the AHP model to understand the role of pull-factors in urban tourism destination choice.

Research limitations/implications:
As a single-destination case study, it is important that the findings of this research are evaluated against similar studies in other cities. A limitation of this research is the fact that sub motives within major groups of pull-factor motives have not been explored in this study and this should be the subject of future, more detailed research.

Originality/value:
This research shows the value of applying, AHP, an under-used method to understand urban tourist motivations. The new knowledge gained through applying this method is of value to destination marketing organisations as well as to researchers conducting future studies, who will be able to replicate it and test its value.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	tourism, analytic hirearchy process, Ljubljana, urban tourism, motivations, Slovenia
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Business Faculty of Business > Department of Marketing, Events & Tourism Faculty of Business > Tourism Research Centre
Last Modified:	02 Sep 2020 18:18
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/18133

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