Exploring the Profile and Behavior of Visitors to Crete

Introduction

Whether in its mythology or physical existence, tourism has forged its impact in the Greek civilization all along history. The literature has reported that foreigners were sanctified and considered sacred in ancient Greece. Xenius Zeus, the father of the gods, also became the god of hospitality to protect foreigners and inspire locals to look after their visitors (Buhalis, 2001). Greece has welcomed cordially and openly multiple civilizations and hosted many events, which made it grab the world’s attention. The Olympic Games, which originated in the 8th century BC in Olympia, Greece, are nowadays not only considered the largest and most prestigious mega-sport event in the world, but most importantly the event is perceived as a catalytic force in driving tourism (Preus, 2004; Tsiotsou & Gouri, 2010).

Yet, over the last century the importance of tourism for the Greek economy hasn’t stopped from being quite significant and has become even more acknowledged and understood by policymakers in the aftermath of the recent economic recession (Papatheodorou & Arvanitis, 2014). Furthermore, Galanos (2013) confirmed that in recent times tourism is being referred to in Greece as the core of the new development policy aiming for overcoming the world economic crisis. Hence, the country managed to have a rising status through history until in the last decade when the long economic crisis came to take a heavy toll in late 2008 where jobs were lost, incomes were slashed and taxes were raised. The crisis hit all the economy sectors, including tourism. In late 2009 rating agencies (Fitch, Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s) started rapidly to downgrade the country and the private foreign flows stopped (Hyppolite, 2016). These calamities have surely affected the regional tourism which pushed financial experts to start looking for every dash of hope to get out of the hollow they’d been trapped in. Crete itself, as the biggest Greek island, has been jeopardized by the debt crisis but luckily still holds promising signs that have helped to revive the tourism industry in the region and bring it to the forefront. Despite the financial struggles, tourism in Crete has shown significant signs and never stopped being a potent contributor in both the regional and national Greek economy (Butler, 2014). Hence, the government is showing strong willingness for development and innovation within the tourism industry in the area. These incentives make it relevant and quite necessary to start from scratch and build a strong basis for later development actions, starting first by knowing tourists and exploring their way of thinking and behaving during their stay on the island. In fact, according to McDonald & Dunbar (1998), targeting the right customer could be a decisive basic step in a business. In tourism, this step will facilitate to deliver to the tourist the proper services needed and to make sure to respond to future visitors’ expectations (Verhoef et al., 2002). Under this scope, this paper is dedicated to be a tool that helps explore the previous aspects and investigate the tourists’ profiles. Subsequently, this project will try, via gathering primary data, to shape profiles for the tourists that are frequenting the island of Crete.

In the main, goals will be approached by finding reasonable answers for the following problematics:

To achieve the final intent of this project and find the answers to the previous questions, we tested the following hypothesis by means of the linear correlation test:

• H01: “Having an incentive to revisit Crete for another time may be endorsed by the perception of the island as a summer destination.”

• H00: “The level of tourists’ satisfaction could have an impact on the intention they declare to visit Crete again.”