The Impacts of Private Accommodation Attributes on Tourism Demand

The private tourism accommodation concept has not been largely represented in the scientific research. It started appearing on the margins of the actual research in the past ten years, namely with a hotel as the most analyzed form of tourism accommodation. In the structure of tourism accommodation in Croatia in 2011 private accommodation participated with 465 000 beds which represents 49,8 percent of the total capacity and therefore demands more attention. Using the main marketing postulate where the consumer is the key of each business success, the main goal of this paper is to determinate the attributes of private tourism accommodation which have the main role in selection of accommodation facilities in Dubrovnik as one of the leading tourism destination in Croatia. The main goal will be carried out through the primary research of tourism demand by using modified hedonic model which will represent accommodation capacity utilization rate in relation to selected private accommodation attributes. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression or the related log-linear form have in prior hospitality or tourism applications mostly been used to estimate this type of model. In this paper log-linear specification for the capacity utilisation rate function was used instead of the linear one. This paper differs from other papers which used hedonic pricing model as it examines the impact of attributes of the actual accommodation units not on price but on capacity occupancy rate. The explanatory variables of the private accommodation capacity utilization rate, among others, include location, characteristics such as availability of free parking place, distance to the Old Town, sea view, terrace/garden. The results of this research will provide instructions and directions to the management of private accommodation in tourism destination in order to increase private accommodation capacity utilisation whereby private accommodation season will be extended. The positive effects of season extension will be two-sided: for destination management the number of arrivals will be increased as well as overnights and receipts and for the accommodation owners increasing of rental receipts will result in their higher satisfaction. The main finding of the paper is that the prices in the private tourist accommodation are formed solely by owners’ intuition whereas accommodation capacity utilization rate is the real reflection of the tourist demand preferences.