Fonte: Journal of Tourism & Development; v. 1, n. 13/14 (2010); 219-230
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Resumo: In a hypercompetitive global context, visitor attractions are a strategic area of study since its importance for the attractiveness of destinations is indisputable. Resulting of a Masters dissertation (Caldeira, 2006), this research intended to examine whether Visitor Management (VM) good practices are a source of competitive advantage, based on an exploratory analysis of Portuguese visitor attractions. A mail questionnaire survey was collected from paid attractions, with an 80% response rate, allowing the respondents to be grouped into three classes regarding their practices of GV: ‘laggers’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘leaders’. Beside other descriptive and inferential statistical methods used in data analysis, this categorization in particular was defined using multiple correspondences factor analysis (MCFA), relatively little used in Tourism research but confirming the value of its application. The attractions with VM best practices reported more competitive advantages in terms of differentiation and cost-effectiveness and better performance in volume and length of stay of visitors, permitting to conclude that guaranteeing the competitiveness of the attractions implies an adequate VM.
