Sampling in Local Tourism Quantification: Critical Issues and Field Experience

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to detail some issues relating to tourist sampling by means of three case studies. Tourism quantification issues and solutions will be illustrated in three paradgmatic situations: sampling in a self-contained context with multiple access points (an Island in Aeolian archipelago), tourism in a seaside town, and nautical tourism. In these contexts the issue of building a space-time grid to circumscribe the target population is made more complex by the mobile nature of these populations.