Segmenting cultural event visitors using the latent class approach: the case of “Sensational Umbria” photo exhibition by Steve McCurry

Profiling event visitors has attracted increasing interest in tourism literature. However, in event visitors' segmentation, psychographic characteristics such as perceptions and satisfaction should be more emphasized by research. To fill this gap, our study aims at segmenting event visitors according to their overall perception of the exhibition, the perceived quality of the exhibition and their relationship with photography in terms of expertise. The study was based on a sample of 455 visitors of the photo exhibition “Sensational Umbria” by Steve McCurry (Perugia, Italy, 2014-2015), which was analyzed through a latent class approach. Results provide evidence of two different typologies of visitors: pragmatic and expert, who are differently affected by their level of expertise in photography and that are not convergent in evaluations about the exhibition. Theoretical and managerial implications, along with avenues for future research, are discussed.