Using visit frequency to segment ski resorts customers

The purpose of the study is to segment ski resorts customers according to their frequency of visits in order to identify homogeneous groups. In particular, the study investigates the degree to which ski experience, overall satisfaction and income discriminate customers who visit ski resorts weekly from those who visit them monthly. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was given to 200 customers of two different ski resorts in Greece. The questionnaire was answered by 191 individuals (95.5 per cent response rate). Classification with discriminant analysis was used to identify consumers with different visitation frequency. The hypothesis that ski experience, overall satisfaction and income will classify consumers according to their visitation frequency was confirmed. The findings of the study provide theoretical and practical implications in identifying better segments and increasing destination marketing effectiveness.