Urban Tourist Motivations in the City of Porto

Abstract

Porto is one of the fastest growing European tourist destinations that has experienced exponential growth in the demand for city-break tourists. Despite the growing importance of Porto as a tourist destination in the European and national context, there isn’t still a systematic study that identifies and explores the pull factors that characterize the behaviour of tourists that visit the city of Porto. This study through the use of surveys conducted in the historic centre of Porto, and adopting the Analytical Hierarchy Process method, allows in a nonintrusive way to identify and prioritize those pull factors. The results of this study allowed identifying the hedonic consumption dimension, which includes both cultural motive and gastronomy variables, as the determining factor in the choice of tourists representing more than 50% of the tourist motivations. The results of this study are relevant for tourism professionals that intend to offer authentic experiences that simultaneously explore the unique cultural and gastronomic characteristics of the city of Porto.