PREDICTORS OF TOURISTS' SHOPPING PROPENSITY: A CASE FROM ISTANBUL

While rarely the primary motive for travel, shopping is an important activity for tourists at the destination. The contribution of tourist shopping to the development of the retail sector in the destination area, and, more widely, to local economic development, as well as to increase the attractiveness of the location to tourists, has been widely recognized. Worldwide, shopping makes up for approximately one-third of total tourism spending but the proportion varies from country to country and from one tourist segment to another. In this context, the present study examines the effectiveness of demographic attributes, travel attributes, motivation attributes, activity attributes, and attitudinal attributes towards different forms of retail as predictor variables for tourists' shopping propensity. We found that these attributes could be employed successfully in the identification of those tourist segments that have a higher propensity to shop. As such, the findings of this study have important marketing and sales management implications.