Quality of the Azores destination in the perspective of tourists

Abstract

Tourism is a growing industry in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. However, little is known about how tourists evaluate this destination, something which certainly constitutes a shortcoming if one takes into consideration that this is a very competitive industry, with new destinations appearing every year and others increasing their market share. This paper focuses on the quality of the Azores destination in the perspective of tourists and, to an extent, has the goal of contributing to reduce this shortcoming. According to our findings, 74 per cent of the tourists interviewed consider the global quality of the Azores destination to be very good or excellent, with the landscape, the climate/weather, the hospitality, the cleanliness and the security being the most highly rated partial indicators. Additionally, a regression analysis indicates that the evaluation of the global quality of this destination varies according to the individual characteristics of tourists.