A competitive study of two tourism destinations through the application of conjoint analysis techniquesthe case of the Canary Islands

Abstract

The aspiration to know and to correspond to consumer expectations, supposes a continuous challenge that companies must confront and has become a central issue in an extant literature. There is ample agreement about the importance of consumer orientation for the competitiveness of companies. Businesses are faced with the need to satisfy customers today and to develop new products for the future. These requirements are accentuated in the tourist sector because they have a particular dependence on “tourist preferences”. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate with the results of an analysis that seeks to deepen the knowledge of competitive advantages in the hotel sector of two tourism destinations by studying the utility that the different products offered provides to demand. By means of the application of the statistical techniques of conjoint analysis and simulation, we have obtained a model to apply to entrepreneurial decision-making that enables us to recognise the product that, among those supplied, most value provides to the demand of each tourism destination, as well as the observation of significant differences between those destinations.