PLS-PM models to study the future tourist experience

Over time, tourism has become an increasingly central experience in people’s lives, changing its form and mode of realization. This chapter intends to understand what the characteristics of the tourism of the future in Italy will be. To answer this question, the results of a survey carried out in two steps are presented: in the first phase, three focus groups were realized, in the second phase, a sample of facebook users was interviewed. The questionnaire was designed starting from the results of the first step. A path model, based on the research hypotheses, was constructed and the data were analyzed using the Pls-PM algorithm. Even if the use of the model only partially worked because it didn’t adapt well to all the data collected, the combinate analysis of qualitative and quantitative data makes it possible to argue that the future of tourism will be characterized by an even greater personalization of the experience.