Classification of tourist destinations in mexico through discriminant analysis

Abstract

Tourism in Mexico has several features that makes it a national priority given its importance as a factor of development and economic growth. Because of the great diversity that countries have like natural, social and even technological resources; these can be visited, however this presents a problem in terms of classification and identification of the elements that can be part of the tourist vocation. We had access to information of 50 tourist destinations destinations in Mexico that a priori can be classified as: cultural destinations, nature destinations and sun and beach destinations trom a set of variables grouped into attractions, facilities and organization destination, accessibility and image. The general objective of the study is to use a discriminant analysis technique to determine the vocation of tourist destinations. It is concluded that the highest percentage of the studied loca- tions corresponds to cultural destinations (68%), followed by natural desti- nations (28%) and finally the sun and beach destinations (8%). However, it is important to note that sun and beach destinations have probabilities to belong to cultural and natural destinations this is because of the additional features that they have. Tourism policies should be differentiated in function of tourist vocation.