Willingness of Cruise Tourists to Use Pay for Shared and Upgraded Sustainable Mobility Solutions: The Case of Corfu

摘要

Tourism and cruise tourism is an important economic activity in most Ionian Islands, such as Corfu, which is located at the northern part of the Ionian Sea at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea. All inhabitants of Corfu directly or indirectly are occupied with tourism which of course supports the economy of the island but also brings a lot of difficulties in the everyday life of the local community, such as traffic congestion, delays, noise, environmental pollution etc. The intense of these problems is even larger in the historical center, since it is the main destination of the island especially for the cruise visitors who have very limited time for sight-seeing and usually prefer a tour inside the city or in the nearby monuments and beaches. The current work is attempting to shed light on different aspects of the cruise tourism in Corfu as regards mainly the demographical characteristics of the cruise visitors, their most popular destinations, the mode that they usually use but also their willingness to use and to pay for a range of sustainable mobility solutions-that is to say a Bike and Car sharing system and an upgraded and reliable Bus-Based transport system. The analysis and results is based on a questionnaire survey that was realized in the Port of Corfu and was addressed to several cruise visitors during the summer period of 2019.