ASSESSING TOURIST SATISFACTION IN THE AZORES: A MICROECONOMETRIC APPROACH

This paper uses a new micro-survey on a representative sample of tourists who visited the Azores, an emerging Portuguese Archipelago tourist destination, to quantify the determinants of tourist satisfaction, the intention to revisit the destination and the likelihood of recommending the destination to friends and relatives. To do so we employ a microeconometric ordered probit model. The econometric results are statistically valid and economically important, since they uncover significant and heterogeneous responses which vary according to the tourists' socio-demographic profiles, as well as trip attributes, among other factors. Our results allow policymakers and tourism economic agents alike to tailor policies aimed at increasing tourist satisfaction, repeat visitation rates and recommendation rates.