Revenue determinants in alternative tourism app

A firm would like to know which factors are the most significant for its revenue growth and this can be a very complex problem to solve since revenue determinants can be identified by literature to be a plethora of variables. The paper provides the methodology for pinpointing the most important revenue determinants for tourism accommodation establishments. Specifically, it aims to provide insight into revenue determinants of hotels and tourist accommodation establishments specializing in alternative tourism in a land-lock region of Northwestern Greece using the LASSO method on questionnaire data. LASSO presents many advantages for estimating tourism models with many possible determinants with a data-driven procedure for the selection of variables. Results suggest that tourists visiting the region, have strong preferences for traditional hostels of very high quality with investments in accessible tourism. Also, important determinants of revenue growth are the existence of a restaurant, playground, fitness centre, souvenir shop, the number of employees, and the human capital of the establishments. The method can be used as a yardstick in studies for other alternative tourism regions, for exhibiting the factors determining revenues.