Are Preferences for Water Quality Different for Second-Home Residents?

Abstract

The latest trends in tourism indicate the emergence of a new segment of visitors looking for accommodation in private residences. The increase in second-home residents has led to efforts to improve knowledge of the preferences of this new type of tourist in those destinations where their presence is considerable. As one of the key variables affecting the choice of residential tourists is the environmental quality of the area, this paper focuses on testing for the existence of an inverse correlation between the loss of coastal water transparency, viewed as a measure of environmental quality, and beach aesthetics in Santa Ponça Bay, a Mallorcan coastal area containing two urban beach zones of intensive recreational use, where the proportion of second-home residents is high. The results show that the willingness to pay for improvements in water transparency diminishes in a non-linear way when transparency deteriorates, resulting in no statistically significant differences between first- and second-home residents.