Customer segmentation for marinas: Evaluating marinas as destinations

Marinas are a significant part of marine tourism activity and they are complex organizations having a highly heterogeneous business structure with many different companies trying to provide the various services that altogether compromise the so called "marina services". From this perspective, they can be described as destinations and analyzed with a destination marketing perspective. This study aims to conduct a benefit segmentation approach to marinas as destinations, in order to identify the existing market segments based on yachters' expectations from them. Data were collected from 261 yachters of seven marinas located on Turkey's Aegean coast in 2014. The five identified segments are labelled as socially oriented, indifferent, supportive facilities oriented, service and prestige oriented, and touristic attractiveness oriented clusters. Clusters are validated by nine independent variables that define their socio-demographic characteristics and individual motivations for traveling to marinas. The results offer important implications both for practitioners and scholars. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.