Relationships Between Tourist And Trip Characteristics And Visitor Satisfaction: A Case Study Of The Panama Canal Watershed

The relationships between socio-demographic and trip characteristics and tourists' satisfaction with their park experiences are still relatively poorly understood. An objective of this study was to determine whether these relationships could be isolated and quantified in the experiences of 727 domestic and international tourists in the Panama Canal Watershed (PCW). Results determined that variations in both global satisfaction and item-specific satisfaction of PCW tourists were largely unrelated to variations in socio-demographic and trip characteristics, with the notable exceptions being group type, country of origin and the tourist's native language. There were significantly higher satisfaction levels among both international (as opposed to domestic) visitors and those in guided tour groups (as opposed to independent travellers). Moreover, tour group visitors had consistently higher satisfaction levels than independent travellers both with interpretive and non-interpretive services and setting attributes, regardless of whether they were domestic or international tourists.