Rural geotourists segmentation by motivation in weekends and weekdays

Abstract

Rural geotourism is one of the geotourism products which is linked to rural tourism activities. More specifically, geo-villages especially stone villages are main forms of rural geotourism destinations and they are ideal for geotourists. Thus, the main study’s objective is to explore rural geotourists’ characteristics, revealing the differences in their motivations on weekends versus weekdays using a factor–cluster market segmentation approach. The sample population for this research consisted of tourists who have visited the Kandovan rocky village in Tabriz City. We collected push and pull motivation data from a questionnaire and separated respondents into weekend and weekday samples. The weekend and weekday motivation factors were derived from 30 motivation items through factor analysis. Among a total of 624 questionnaires distributed, 600 questionnaires were used for further data analyses. As a result of cluster analysis, weekend tourists were divided into three clusters and weekday tourists were segmented into four clusters. Through a comparison of the results for weekends and weekdays, we find both weekend and weekday tourists seek “novelty” and “geological attractions” when they travel to Kandovan.