Visitor’s experience and other drivers of length of stay at a destination

We investigate the main attributes affecting tourists’ length of stay at a destination. Based on the most recent literature on tourist behaviour, we group the main drivers into (1) tourist’s sociodemographic profile (age, gender, education, composition of the party, and income); (2) holiday frame (motivation, planning, accommodation, distance, mean of transport); and tourist’s experience of the place (on site activities and satisfaction). We show how to empirically measure the effect of key drivers through survival analysis and we apply this methodology using data coming from a customer satisfaction survey. Understanding the key drivers that influence the duration of tourists’ stay is paramount for public bodies to define strategies in terms of (1) the type of tourism product they want to promote and offer (Gokovali et al. 2007); (2) the use of tourist facilities (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003); and (3) the type of tourism demand they aim at attracting (Goodall, 1988).