Evaluation of Athens as a City Break Destination: Tourist Perspective Explored via Data Mining Techniques

Abstract

The present study based on city tourism and specifically in the profile of tourists who visit Athens, the capital of Greece. Athens has been always considered among the most attractive tourist destinations given the fact that is known for its abundant historical and cultural inheritance and significant philosophers, historians and scientists. In recent years has been developed a different, mostly negative image. Therefore, the current study will examine those negative aspects of Athens that led to its degradation as a tourist destination and it will present the point of view not only that of experienced tourism professionals, but also that of tourists; The research aims to investigate the attractiveness and the competitiveness of Athens as a City Break destination. A survey through questionnaires has been conducted among actual international visitors of Athens, in order to explore tourists’ preferences and their perception regarding Athens image, as a City Break destination. The methodology, that was adopted, consists of two concrete phases. During the first phase, questionnaires were created and submitted. During the second phase, the data set were collected, preprocessed and analyzed based on Data Mining techniques evaluating the results. More specifically, classification algorithms were utilized so as to manage to describe hidden patterns. Also, the parameters of the algorithms were set, depending on the application cases, and the results were correlated with the demographic characteristics of the respondents, in order to evaluate and assess the significance of exported rules/conclusions. The study’s major contribution is that to identify Athens’ perceived image as a City Break Destination, and pinpoints to critical factors for achieving higher level of satisfaction in future tourists.