PRODUCT DESIGN DECISIONS FOR DEVELOPING NEW TOURIST DESTINATIONS: THE CASE OF RHODOPI MOUNTAIN

The scope of the paper is to present the proper tourist product characteristics and market opportunities by the recipients of the tourist market, aiming at the support of the sustainable tourism design process. These characteristics concern the prospective elevated tourist destinations that may be exploited strategically by the tourist administration of the destinations. For the investigation of the most important product characteristics factor analysis was applied, as well as, spatial perceptual mapping techniques. The paper is based on a situation analysis, using as case the Rhodopi Mountain area in Greece. Results showed that the design of the elevation of the destination is a viable market prospective, if it is based on three major factors: the climate (geophysical and archaeological characteristics), taverns-restaurants (gastronomy) and parking areas (spa, post shops and health centers). Various combinations of relevant characteristics are proposed, which ameliorate particular effective characteristics of the area, which could raise the area’s attractiveness to professional partners and potential groups of customers.