TOURISTS’ PREFERENCES FOR QUALITY OF SERVICES: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF LESVOS, SAMOS AND CHIOS ISLANDS

Since tourism is an important source of economic prosperity for Aegean islands, it is interesting to discover the factors affecting the preferences of Greek and foreign tourists to visit and stay on these islands. Using annual data from 1985 to 1996 for the islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios, the present paper investigates empirically whether quality of services is one of these factors. Specifically, we consider an econometric model drawing from the switching regime literature, to examine causality effects between visitor’s preferences for services’ quality, the number of Greek and foreign tourists arriving at the islands and the duration of their residence.