Crowding Perception in a Tourist City: A Question of Preference

Two main topics are analysed in this paper: a crowding model for an urban destination is tested by the use of a binary logistic model in order to identify the variables influencing crowding perception; and the inherent negativity of the crowding concept, as is often assumed, is examined through association statistics. The results confirmed that personal and behavioural variables have a larger effect on the perception of crowding than use-level. Furthermore, the relationship between crowding and experience, while significantly negative, could only be found in respondents with a preference for low, and a perception of high, use-levels, while for the majority of individuals the perception of a certain crowding level did not lead to a negative evaluation of the conditions. This proves that the concept of crowding cannot be assumed to be implicitly negative, and needs individual preferences to be fully understood.