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Heritage tourist in World Heritage sites in Latin America. Case study, Cuenca (Ecuador).

Abstract:

Heritage tourism, understood as the visit to places where culture and the historical-artistic heritage is remarkable, is becoming an important economic engine for those destinations. Especially, if they are recognized as a World Heritage Site by Unesco. This paper presents an inquiring study that analyzes the profile of the cultural tourist, the characteristics of his trip and what are the main reasons for visiting a World Heritage City in South America, such as the city of Cuenca (Ecuador). The methodology used in this research consisted of a field work, based on surveys of tourists in the time they were visiting the city, between October 2014 and February 2015, applying a descriptive statistical analysis, a factorial analysis and by clusters of the sample. The results confirm an interesting typology of tourists with an educational level and a medium-high income and with a diversity of countries of origin. Likewise, it is evident that there are three motivational dimensions that induce to visit Cuenca: a cultural dimension, a circumstantial dimension and a dimension of convenience. It has been determined four types of visitors, being the tourist with cultural motivations the best satisfaction when visiting the city. The main practical application of this research is to contribute to understand the characteristics of tourists visiting a heritage city and what are their motivations, in order to segment the market and design tourism and cultural products that better meet their needs.