Segmentation of tourists in the heritage site of Cuenca, Ecuador

Resumen

This paper contributes to presenting the relationship that exists in a certain tourism destination between the World Heritage Site (WHS) and the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), showing a segmentation of the tourists in Cuenca, Ecuador. The methodology used in this research has been the application of a multivariate technique of grouping items and the realisation of a post-hoc single-variate ANOVA analysis. The results show the existence of three motivational dimensions for visiting the city, two of a cultural nature and the third being hedonic. Depending on the motivation, four types of tourists are identified: the hedonic ICH-WHS tourist, the hedonic WHS tourist, the hedonic tourist and the ICH-WHS tourist. This research reinforces this theme, in a geographic area, Latin America, characterised by a recognised WHS but still little studied in the scientific literature.