Urban destination perceived value: The case of Barcelona

The aim of this paper is to analyze the value of urban destinations as perceived by tourists, by studying the differences between tourists of different nationalities who visit the same city. The bibliographical review identifies three major dimensions of perceived value: functional value, emotional value and social value. An empirical study was carried out in the city of Barcelona, interviewing a total of 992 tourists, 500 French and 492 Italian, two of the nationalities that most visit the city. The literature argues that cultural differences are more and more diluted in a global world, and especially among developed countries due to the homogenizing effect of information and communication technologies, hence the interest in verifying whether tourists from the two Mediterranean countries with similar levels of development have similar or different perceptions of a tourism destination. In the analysis of the data, first a study of the dimensionality, reliability and validity of the perceived value scale was carried out by means of a Confirmatory Factor Analysis using the Structural Equations Models Technique. Next a descriptive analysis was carried out applying the ANOVA technique, allowing identification of any significant differences between the means of several independent samples. The results reveal significant differences between French and Italians in the perceived value of the city of Barcelona. This has important implications as it permits government and managers to make more accurate decisions with regard to promotion strategies for urban destinations.