Key Attributes Driving Yacht Tourism: Exploring Tourist Preferences Through Conjoint Analysis

Abstract

The study aims to identify key attributes driving yacht tourism and analyze their relative importance using conjoint analysis. This method quantifies attribute importance and utility values to evaluate their impact on consumer choices and optimize market segmentation strategies through attribute combination simulations. The research was conducted with a sample of 484 yacht tourists at yacht marinas, focusing on four key attributes: program, safety, service, and accessibility. The analysis revealed that yacht sailing programs were considered the most important attribute overall. However, preferences varied significantly depending on prior experience. Experienced yacht tourists ranked the attributes in the following order of importance: program, safety, service, and accessibility. In contrast, inexperienced tourists prioritized safety above all, followed by program, service, and accessibility. The study identified that all tourist groups preferred the same optimal combination: “a yacht sailing experience program that provides safety education and equipment, operates a tourism information platform, and is accessible within one hour by public transportation from the city center”. Although this optimal combination was consistent across groups, the utility values differed, with experienced yacht tourists exhibiting the highest values, followed by inexperienced tourists and overall tourists. The findings highlight the importance of prioritizing both sailing programs and safety measures in yacht tourism development, while also considering tourists’ experience levels. These insights provide practical implications for the development of targeted promotion strategies.