According to Dolnicar (2008, p.147), who has offered a comprehensive
record of the approaches and developments in segmentation
‘a wide variety of alternative techniques can be used to
identify or construct segments. Approaches range from simple
commonsense segmentations (where tourists are split on the basis
of a predefined personal characteristic) to multidimensional datadriven
approaches where a set of tourist characteristics is used as
the basis for grouping. Of course, managers may be interested in
exploring combinations of simultaneously constructed market
segments’. The study conducted by Vitouladiti on an established
island destination in Greece (Vitouladiti, 2012) combines one of
the simple commonsense approaches (demographic characteristics)
with a data driven approach (important benefits sought by
the visitors) in order to create market segments and achieve a
deeper understanding of the various segments characterizing
today's competitive and evolving business environment. Firstly,
the research points to a change of needs and desires of the
classical target markets, as well as an evolution in their profile,
making them more demanding. At the same time new and
currently unidentified target markets are emerging, which have
never been targeted. Therefore, the study confirms that improvements
in education and welfare in European countries have
diversified the profiles of the consumers, their wants, motives
and preferences and have increased the quality standard
demanded.