Visitors and non-visitors to archaeological heritage attractions: The cases of Massada and Avedat, Israel

The aim of this study is to investigate the distinction between visitors and non-visitors to heritage sites in a comparative manner. Recent studies have shown the advantage of experiential and benefit segmentation of visitors to heritage sites over the more traditional socio-demographic division. This study compares visitors and non-visitors to the heritage sites of Massada and Avedat with respect to their prior tourism experience both at childhood and later, vis-a-vis their sociodemographic characteristics. The comparison is based on a survey of 300 interviews. Massada, connected to heroic events in Jewish history about 2000 years ago, is much more significant to the Israeli domestic tourist than Avedat. As such, it was found to generate a completely different pattern of differentiation between visitors and non-visitors. While the less significant site of Avedat complies with previous studies and visitors are distinguished from non-visitors by their prior experience rather than their socio-demographic profile, the site of Massada portrays just the opposite. At this major heritage attraction visitors and non-visitors are differentiated by their socio-demographic characteristic rather than their prior experience.