Travelling with Dogs: Modelling Tourist Profiles through Attitudes and Behaviours

Dogs influence holiday planning when families travel with their pets and directly impact the services they consume at destinations. This research aims to determine the relationship between the attitudes and behaviours expressed by tourists who own dogs and the sociodemographic characteristics of this type of tourists' profiles (e.g. educational level, income, age and gender). The data is based on a survey of 21 Likert questions about perceptions and thoughts regarding dog owners' tourism in Spain. An artificial neural network is developed to estimate a "tourist profile" based on inputs from the predetermined Likert scale replies to the questionnaire. This model can also assess the variations produced through the Likert scale questions in every characteristic of the tourist's profile. Key findings reveal that factors like allowing dogs to sleep in the same room, access to dog-friendly accommodations, and emotional motivations significantly shape tourist profiles. These insights can help destinations and tourism businesses better tailor their services to the needs of dog-owning travellers.