The measurement of sustainable behaviour and satisfaction with services in cruise tourism experiences. An empirical analysis

This paper aims to analyse cruise tourists’ sustainable behaviour and their level of satisfaction at destinations. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1180 cruise tourists at one major port of call in the Mediterranean region. This allowed us to group cruise tourists into clusters, according to their characteristics, and analyse all the elements of two alternate types of behaviour. One group answered the questionnaire just after living the experience in the destination city; a second group, that already lived the experience in the same city, answered the same survey online. We also identified the aspects that most influence the global level of satisfaction, using ordered logit models. The findings, although drawn from only one destination, may be useful for practitioners and policy makers by allowing them to pinpoint and understand specific determinants of the socio-economic effects of cruise tourism on a destination, by taking into account the role of sustainable services. This study explores aspects overlooked by other studies by adopting a research model that goes beyond the traditional approach that has tended to focus on cruise tourists’ satisfaction based on traditional services and facilities.