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Tourist arrivals are often wrongly interpreted as the number of tourists. The non-agreement between arrivals and tourists (Parroco and Vaccina, 2006) produces a large overestimation of the number of tourists really present at the destinations (tourists replication), so determining heavy consequences on economic and territorial planning. In order to get a first estimate of replications and to analyse the typical tourist tours throughout Sicily, in summer 2005 a census research was made on 8.883 tourists intercepted at 13 hotels in Cefalù, a well-known bathing resort in the Northern coast of Sicily (Italy).

Many pleasure trips are often characterized by the visit of more than a single destination. Despite the topic is well documented in literature, the empirical studies are limited to a few pioneering studies. This lack may be attributable to the failure of tourism organizations to collect data on multi-destination trip behaviors, as it results, for example, from the system of European statistics on tourism (according to the Council Directive 95/57 EC), where no information on the average number of destinations visited within a single trip are provided. This paper aims to analyze the main implications of multi-destination trips both on tourism statistics and in tourism planning, and to describe the research design and the solutions adopted for the analysis of incoming tourism in Sicily. Some results related to the number of destinations visited and on the main travel itineraries undertaken by tourists in Sicily derived from the survey are presented.

This paper aims to describe the sample design and the survey plan used in the survey on incoming tourism in Sicily and Sardinia. The specific goals of the survey are related: a) to the measurement and the analysis of un-observed tourism; b) to the evaluation of tourist mobility within the two Islands; c) to the analysis of some key-factors related to the holyday experience of tourists. It is well known that regional tourists are very difficult-to-reach populations and the problems in sampling human mobile populations derive from the absence of a list of units component units (frame). Despite these issues are well-known in literature under the broader categories of hard to reach, or hidden, or mobile populations, etc., the methodological solutions and most of all the empirical applications in tourism studies are almost poor. The sampling strategy undertaken to analyze non resident tourists leaving Sicily and Sardinia at the end of their vacation is a complex, multi-stage, stratified Time-Location Sampling (TLS). Under this perspective, the availability of information on the distribution of tourism flows by time (months) and space (departure places) for the two Islands was a fundamental prerequisite for the implementation of the sample design. Key words: Hard-to-reach populations; mobile populations; time-location sampling; time-space sampling; frontier surveys, border surveys. Parole chiave: Popolazioni mobili; campionamento spazio-temporale; indagini campionarie alle frontiere.

The topic of tourist mobility within a single destination and between destinations during a single trip has received much attention among several researches since long time. However, from the empirical point of view, the analysis of tourists paths, and of the main determinants of multi-destination trips, have not still been adequately investigated. Information collected thanks to the Project of Relevant National Interest (PRIN) on mobility and tourists behaviors in Sicily and Sardinia, allow to analyse the main tourists paths in the two Islands. The present work aims to analyse multi-destination trip in Sicily and to illustrate the main tourists routes undertaken by incoming tourists in Sicily.

Even in contexts where Customer Management techniques are not very advanced, the need for relations with customers is as strong as to suggest expensive ad hoc researches able to simultaneously measure the satisfaction levels, to detect the eventual inadequacy of selling actions, to investigate the relations of customers with competitors. This is why the Grande Migliore Group in Palermo commissioned a research from the University of Palermo. The research was made in year 2008 at 10 Grande Migliore shops in Palermo and in other Western Sicily towns. The multipurpose nature of the research and the features of the customers population suggested the adoption of an ad hoc research design, the features and control of which are described in this paper with particular focus on the impact of some non sampling errors.

the research question that have lead to the empirical research on tourism mobility are presented. Then, briefly, the methods and the instruments planned are discussed. At the end, expected result of the project are illustrated.

Mass tourism has contributed to the spread of English throughout the world, and to portrait local traditions and languages as archaic and folkloristic cultural traits, not a part of real life. Under globalization and the thrust to linguistic homogeneity, local minority language communities are going to weaken their cultural heritage, when conforming to English speaking mass tourists expectations. This is not, however, necessary nor unavoidable. Evidence of the contrary exists: in some cases tourism plays a fundamental role to preserve minority languages (Greathouse-Amador 2005). In the past, languages were not considered as attractors in tourist markets; they showed their potentialities to create economic added value only with respect to requested multilingualism in tourist services. Over last years, the need for relational experiences, that forms what today we name “relational tourism”, has been producing the rise of new tourist requests, both in “heritage” and “ethnic” terms. In the paper, the role of linguistic minorities will be analyzed with reference to the possibility of giving answers to new customer relational needs, in the awareness that both the knowledge of an international global language (English) and the need to preserve minority languages are requested in order to differentiate the supply of new relational cultural goods. Linguistic minorities and their lands today represent relevant attractors for relational tourists. Within the more developed Mediterranean countries, they seem more able to reduce the dangerous cultural impact of tourism than elsewhere, since the successful integration within the broader national community is experienced; pupils already study English (as well as Italian) at school, and know how more comfortable the staying is for tourists who can express in their own language. Our aim is also to show that linguistic minorities can be considered resources to determine economic development especially within rural areas (Sproull 1996; Donaldson 1999). It has in fact been argued that linguistic specificity can be fully considered an asset together with the territory and the artistic and cultural heritage of destinations (Pujolar 2008). Ethnic tourism and the stimulating statistical challenge to construct valid measures for it will be discussed with particular reference to the case of the Arbëreshe language. It is actually spoken within some local communities in Sicily and in the Southern Italy by the descendants of ancient Albanian people who five centuries ago left their land to escape from the Ottoman invasion. Such local communities, today attracting just one-day travellers, need to recover much of their cultural heritage to attract international and domestic tourist flows.

Many pleasure trips are often characterized by the visit of more than a single destination. The topic is well documented in literature (Cooper 1981; Mings & McHugh, 1992), but the main determinants and consequences of multi-destination trips have not been adequately analyzed (McKercher & Lew, 2004). Moreover, the empirical studies on this topic are limited to a few pioneering studies (Lau & McKercher, 2007; Mings & McHugh, 1992; Wu & Carson, 2008). This lack may be attributable to the failure of tourism organizations to collect data on multi-destination trip behaviors, as it results, for example, from European statistics on tourism (according to the Council Directive 59/95 EC), where no information on the average number of destinations visited within a single trip are provided. Moreover, a deeper analysis of the determinants of multi-destination trip behavior has still to be made. To quantify the relevance of the phenomenon and to analyze its determinants, an empirical research, within a wider project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), was conducted between the summer of 2009 and the spring of 2010. Through a complex space-time sampling plan (at two stages: space-time units, and individual units), about 5,000 Italian (Sicilians excluded) and Foreign tourists departing from Sicily were interviewed at the end of their vacation. A specific section of the questionnaire was dedicated to the collection of information on the number of destinations visited (with at least one overnight stay) in Sicily, on the number of nights spent, and on the typology of establishment chosen in each destination. These issues and the main features of this research will be described and discussed in the present paper. A more profound knowledge of tourists choices with reference to the macro-destination Sicily, of the main tour pathways undertaken, of the most visited destinations, and of the factors which are more strongly correlated with particular multi-destination choices (trip motivations, mode of transportation used, group composition of tourists, total cost of the vacation, etc.), are of particular relevance both for tourism public and private stakeholders.

Il presente contributo ha l’obiettivo di analizzare il ruolo dello statistico sociale nell’ambito dell’analisi dei fenomeni turistici. In particolare, lo statistico (applicato) usa e crea statistiche in funzione di obiettivi conoscitivi e operativi e, a parte l’estensione evidente delle conoscenze e degli ambiti operativi di un fenomeno come quello turistico, allo stato attuale, il contributo più urgente sul piano operativo sembra essere quello di evidenziare, ai gestori del settore, l’assenza di un adeguato livello statistico dell’informazione, nonché le distorsioni interpretative più evidenti nell’utilizzo delle statistiche esistenti. Viene inoltre illustrato come il piano conoscitivo offra ampio spazio a contributi metodologici e tecnici che andrebbero proiettati nell’ambito delle analisi statistiche spazio-temporali

Il lavoro evidenzia il problema legato ad un utilizzo improprio di alcune statistiche del turismo costruite aggregando dati spazio-temporali che, nel processo di aggregazione subiscono alcune modifiche che non permettono più il loro riferimento all'unità elementare di rilevazione. Si propongono alcuni semplici soluzioni e si presentano i risultati preliminari di una indagine volta al dimensionamento del problema in questione.

In this paper it is discussed a typical tourism statistical problem: the substitution of an elementary unit of observation (the tourist) with an indicator, making use of an empirical research. Therefore the necessity to consider the quality of some aggregates in addition to the quality of individual measurements, is stressed.

Si affronta il tema della qualità delle statistiche sul turismo, mettendo in evidenza la mancata corrispondenza tra arrivi e turisti, e proponendo alcune soluzioni per la stima del numero dei turisti attraverso l'ausilio di informazioni ausiliarie.

The paper proposes the application of two different methodologies, based on the Traditional Test Theory (TTT) and on the Modern Test Theory (IRT), to select the items of a questionnaire administered in the year 2000 to the personnel of the Hospital Firm “Careggi” in Florence, in order to analyse the satisfaction of “internal consumers”. Such methodologies provide very different results, depending on the assumptions of the different models used.