Leveraging Tourism Product Through the Development of Charter Flights: A Study Based on the Research Conducted for U.K. and German Markets

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1 Leveraging Tourism Product Through the Development of Charter Flights: A Study Based on the Research Conducted for U.K. and German Markets Abstract: Christos A. Vassiliadis 1 University of Macedonia Christos Sakellarios 2 T.E.I. Patra, Greece Thomas Fotiadis 3 University of Macedonia Here in the importance of the two fundamental for the majority of Greek tourism destinations- market segments of foreign travellers, is assessed. In particular, German and UK tourists departing from Macedonia Airport in Thessaloniki, Greece are analyzed. The analysis focalizes on two major schemes: From one part, the x 2 testing description of differences that are statistically important and concern the 1845 German and UK charter flight travellers as well as their respective level of satisfaction, is developed and evaluated. From the other part, the underlining motives related to the offer factors and details, and how the respective levels of satisfaction are affected, is examined through the factor analysis approach The factor analysis indicated that environment, landscape, image and natural beauties of the place, appear to be constituents of constant offer. According to a research period following a ten-year study, it was found that the factors analyzed constitute a common denominator- that is the diachronic offer elements that without any exception, affect the perceived level of visitor s satisfaction. Conclusively, the major findings are discussed. Keywords: Tourism, Charter Flights, Development INTRODUCTION During the last years, the number and proportion of charter flights in the Greek Tourism Industry is not growing (Ktenas 2005). Members of the Greek tourism sector think that this stagnant situation is related to the lower cost and better quality of the competition. Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Tunis and Spain offer better cost -benefit relations for the tourists. In addition, new destinations such as Bulgaria, Croatia, and Marocco are attractive alternatives for German and UK tourists (Markou 2004). The price increases in Greece, affect broadly the demand coming from UK, West Germany and Sweden (Syriopoulos and Sinclair 1 Dr. Christos Vassiliadis works for the University of Macedonia, Economic and Social Sciences, Thessalonica, Greece. ( chris@uom.gr) 2 Mr. Christos Sakellarios is Ass.Proffesor in the Department of Tourism Management, Technological Education Institute of Patras ( csakellarios@teipat.gr & csakellarios@yahoo.com) 3 Dr. Thomas Fotiadis works for the University of Macedonia, Economic and Social Sciences, Thessalonica, Greece. ( fotiadis@uom.gr)

2 1993). Greece, Spain and Turkey have basically oriented their tourism product offer towards the selling of their 3 competitive elements (sea, sun and sand). A lot of their SME s are related to the Summer Tourism Season with a mass tourism provider. Foreign mass tour operators organize up to 80% of holiday activities (Carey et al. 1997). The German and UK arrival proportion of tourists, remains traditionally (1960 until today) the largest of the total arrivals in Greece (Hall 1995; Siomkos, Vassiliadis and Fotiadis 2004) as well as for other competitive countries (Vassiliadis 2003, p ; Ktenas 2005). The country recognized the problem of a slipping image in the mid-1980s but until today the marketing strategies of the country administrators are seeking to diversify the tourist product in major markets (WTO 1994; Ktenas 2005). However, at the same time as the proportion of the two major markets is remaining -in view of total arrivals- very important, there are certain destinations (for instance Halkidiki in Northern Greece), that tend to pursue new market opportunities in markets like Russia and Bulgaria (Ktenas 2005). Charter flight data provided by the Civil Aviation Service of the MACEDONIA Airport in Thessaloniki-Greece, demonstrated that increases in departures take place within the period between May to August of each charter travel year. Charter flight departures increased in this time period [ ] from a minimum of 8341 departures to maximum for UK tourists. During the same period, the German charter flight departures increased from to departures (Civil Aviation Service, 2004). Charter flight departure data are related to the charter flight season. The season starts from May and lasts until October. Two studies, in 1993 (Siomkos, Vassiliadis and Fotiadis, 2004) and in 2004, on tourism offer and tourist satisfaction from Northern Greece destinations, have focused on the description of basic German and UK charter flight travelers. In the next sections follows, the analysis and a brief discussion concerning the second research study. METHODOLOGY The sample data were acquired from the field research database of the University of Macedonia, Macedonia Airport (low season study)-profiling German and UK package travelers UK and 783 German tourists provided the data for analysis.

3 In order to describe differences which are statistically important among the 1845 German and UK charter flight travelers, a statistical analysis with Chi square statistic (X 2 ), was developed. The Ho was that the tourists satisfaction levels do not depend on their country of origin. The H 1 was that the aforementioned levels depend on the country of origin. Following (using the X 2 analysis with the SPSS 11.5 software), a significant statistical difference between the expected and counted frequency of the German and UK tourists in the 5 levels of the expressed satisfaction measurement scales X 2 (= 253,04, df=8, p=.001)> X 2.001=26,1) has been identified Thus, the levels of satisfaction depend on the origin variable. Case Processing Summary ΔΗΜΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΟ ΧΑΡΑΚΤΗΡΙΣΤΙΚΟ (ΕΘΝΙΚΟΤΗΤΑ) * ΒΑΘΜΟΣ ΙΚΑΝΟΠΟΙΗΣΗΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ Β.ΕΛΛΑΔΑ Cases Valid Missing Total N Percent N Percent N Percent ,8% ,2% ,0% ΔΗΜΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΟ ΧΑΡΑΚΤΗΡΙΣΤΙΚΟ (ΕΘΝΙΚΟΤΗΤΑ) * ΒΑΘΜΟΣ ΙΚΑΝΟΠΟΙΗΣΗΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ Β.ΕΛΛΑΔΑCrosstabulation ΔΗΜΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΟ (Π.ΔΥΤΙΚΗ) ΓΕΡΜΑΝΙΑ ΧΑΡΑΚΤΗΡΙΣΤΙΚΟ Expected (ΕΘΝΙΚΟΤΗΤΑ) Residual (Π.ΑΝΑΤΟΛΙΚΗ)ΓΕΡΜ ΑΝΙΑ Expected Residual ΑΓΓΛΙΑ Expected Residual Total Expected ΒΑΘΜΟΣ ΙΚΑΝΟΠΟΙΗΣΗΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ Β. ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΑΠΟΛΥ.ΑΝΙΚΑ ΑΝΙΚΑΝΟ ΑΝΙΚΑΝΟΠ.&Ι ΙΚΑΝΟΠΟ ΑΠΟΛΥ.ΙΚΑΝΟ ΝΟΠΟΙΗΤΟΣ ΠΟΙΗΤΟΣ ΚΑΝΟΠΟΙΗΜ. ΙΗΜΕΝΟΣ ΠΟΙΗΜΕΝΟΣ Total ,9 25,2 45,7 302,6 283,5 675,0-7,9-6,2 21,3 78,4-85, ,9 4,0 7,3 48,4 45,4 108,0 13,1 17,0 2,7-11,4-21, ,2 39,7 72,0 476,0 446,1 1062,0-5,2-10,7-24,0-67,0 106, ,0 69,0 125,0 827,0 775,0 1845,0 Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association Nof Valid Cases Chi-Square Tests Asymp. Sig. Value df (2-sided) 253,041 a 8, ,165 8,000 40,986 1, a. 2 cells (13,3%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 2,87. Figure 1: Statistical results of the Chi squared analysis between the variables Origin country of the tourists and their level of satisfaction.

4 The fundamental motivation of tourists related to the offering constitutes determining the level of tourist satisfaction, are analyzed as a next step. The statistical analysis Principal Component Analysis approach with the use of the orthogonal rotation procedure, has been utilized for the purposes of this step. The five main factors of the analysis were identified, namely. The first factor was activities in nature and environment, the second factor was accommodation and compatible facilities, the third factor was timetables and related facilities, the fourth factor was value for money and the fifth factor was weather and natural beauty of the milieu. The above factors are responsible for about the 61% of the total explained variance. Component Total Variance Explained Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loa dings Rotation Sums of Squared Loadi ngs Total %of Variance Cumulative% Total %of Variance Cumulative% Total %of Variance Cumulative% 9,388 39,115 39,115 9,388 39,115 39,115 3,595 14,977 14,977 2,036 8,483 47,599 2,036 8,483 47,599 3,172 13,216 28,193 1,106 4,608 52,207 1,106 4,608 52,207 3,157 13,156 41,349 1,065 4,439 56,646 1,065 4,439 56,646 2,917 12,155 53,504 1,039 4,328 60,974 1,039 4,328 60,974 1,793 7,470 60,974,867 3,613 64,587,786 3,274 67,861,715 2,978 70,839,660 2,751 73,590,624 2,600 76,190,591 2,463 78,653,551 2,294 80,947,528 2,199 83,146,509 2,122 85,268,489 2,037 87,305,436 1,816 89,121,416 1,732 90,853,397 1,655 92,508,379 1,579 94,086,359 1,497 95,583,314 1,308 96,891,271 1,131 98,021,245 1,022 99,043,230, ,000 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Figure 2: Factor Analysis results.

5 Rotated Component Matrix a ΚΑΘΑΡΙΟΤΗΤΑ ΠΕΡΙΒΑΛΛΟΝΤΟΣ ΙΠΠΑΣΙΑ, ΠΑΡΑΤΗΡΗΣΗ ΣΠΑΝΙΩΝ ΠΤΗΝΩΝ ΙΑΜΑΤΙΚΕΣ ΠΗΓΕΣ, ΘΕΡΑΠΕΙΑ ΔΥΝΑΤΟΤΗΤΑ ΦΥΛΑΞΗΣ ΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΙΑΣ ΨΥΧΑΓΩΓΙΑΣ ΠΕΡΙΠΑΤΗΤΙΚΟΙ ΔΙΑΔΡΟΜΟΙ ΔΙΑΡΡΥΘΜΙΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΧΩΡΟΥ ΔΙΑΜΟΝΗΣ ΗΣΥΧΙΑ ΕΞΥΠΗΡΕΤΗΣΗ ΣΥΓΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ ΠΟΙΟΤΗΤΑ ΦΑΓΗΤΟΥ ΕΥΓΕΝΕΙΑ ΦΙΛΟΞΕΝΙΑ ΚΑΤΟΙΚΩΝ ΩΡΑΡΙΑ ΜΟΥΣΕΙΩΝ ΩΡΑΡΙΑ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΗΜΑΤΩΝ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΑΚΑ ΚΕΝΤΡΑ.. ΔΥΝΑΤΟΤΗΤΕΣ ΔΙΑΣΚΕΔΑΣΗΣ ΟΥΡΕΣ ΑΝΑΜΟΝΗΣ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΕΣ ΔΥΝΑΤΟΤΗΤΕΣ ΑΣΚΗΣΗΣ ΧΟΜΠΥ.. ΤΙΜΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΥΠΗΡΕΣΙΕΣ ΕΝΗΜΕΡΩΣΗ ΣΕ ΤΟΠΙΚΟ ΓΡΑΦΕΙΟ ΠΟΙΟΤΗΤΑ ΑΘΛΗΤΙΚΩΝ ΕΓΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΕΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΤΙΚΗ ΠΡΟΣΦΟΡΑ ΑΞΙΟΘΕΑΤΑ ΠΕΡΙΒ. ΤΟΠΙΟ ΑΙΣΘΗΤΙΚΗ ΧΩΡΟΥ ΚΛΙΜΑ ΚΑΙΡΟΣ Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. a. Rotation converged in 8 iterations. Component ,751,272,040,067,697,083,191,276,694,146,352,154,671,166,298,151,517,180,206,357,234,739,155,079,197,659,082,081,163,647,401,191,191,610,027,333,090,544,421,233,043,500,464,240,270,098,693,257,320,223,656,079,465,078,637,238,186,275,581,184,422,146,490,274,394,156,197,686,328,227,102,674,189,218,225,644,507,112,261,609 -,044,240,396,586,120 -,017,178,002,026,451,063,199 -,050,364,161,239 Figure 2: Factor analysis results (cont.)

6 DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS G.N.T. Office in Northern Greece lays emphasis on the description of major components (factors) composing the tourism offering, that is the total tourism product of the main destinations in Northern Greece. The UK and German charter flight data analysis that has taken place during the early period of the year 2004 provides administrators of local communities with an approach useful in identifying and evaluating tourism offers. Furthermore, it assists towards the direction of building of a more sustainable customer oriented tourist products and services approach. Environment and landscape, image and beauty of place (Siomkos, Vassiliadis and Fotiadis, 2004), remain two basic factors that can affect the level of achieved satisfaction concerning the UK and German visitors. REFERENCES Carey S., Gountas Y. and Gilbert D. (1997), Tour operators and destination sustainability, Tourism Management, 18, 7. Hall D. R. (1995) Tourism change in Central and Eastern Europe, in: A. Montanari and A.M. Williams, European Tourism: regions, Spaces and Restructuring, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. pp Ktenas S. (2005), Lower than 50% the charter flights, ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ, (in Greek). Markou A. (2004), 8% decline forecasts of the tourist flows in 2004, ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ, (in Greek). Siomkos G. I., Vassiliadis C. A. and Fotiadis Th. (2004), Segmenting and Targeting European Package Travelers, in: Sustainable Tourism 2004, F.D. Pineda and C.A. Brebbia (edit.), WIT Press, Madrid, Spain, pp Syriopoulos Th. C. and Sinclair M. T. (1993), An econometric study of tourism demand: the AIDS model of US and European tourism in Mediterranean countries. Applied Economics, Vol. 25, no.12, December, Vassiliadis C. A. (1993), The Management and Marketing of Tourism Destinations (in Greek), Ath. Stamoulis Publishing, Athens. W.T.O. (1994), Global Tourism Forecasts to the Year 2000 and Beyond, Volume 5; Europe, Nortegrafico, Madrid, Spain. Civil Aviation Service (2004), Departure and arrival statistical data for the years 2002 and 2003, Airport MACEDONIA Thessalonica, Greece (in Greek).