DEFINING BELARUSIAN TOURISTS ’ SEGMENT BY THE EXAMPLE OF VILNIUS AS THEIR DESTINATION

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the Belarusian tourist market on the example of Vilnius as a tourism destination. The main objectives of the article are: 1) to identify the dynamics of inbound tourist arrivals from Belarus to Lithuania for 2008–2013 and 2) to define preferences of tourists from Belarus and the main target audience on the Belarusian tourist market. The research has been conducted using such methods as secondary statistical data analysis of the main inbound tourism indicators and a survey using an online questionnaire. The paper has revealed that tourist arrivals from Belarus to Lithuania have been constantly growing, making up 1,045 million in 2013, which corresponds to 19.8% of all tourists that visited Lithuania that year. The empirical research has also found out that the prospective consumer of tourist services provided in Vilnius is a Belarusian aged 26–45, married, employed, with the average monthly income 501–1000 euro, has children, has been to Vilnius more than 4 times, prefers individual travelling, usually travels with family, visits Vilnius for shopping, events, excursions and transit purposes, stays in Vilnius for 2 days and spends about 340 euro. Taking into consideration the mentioned facts, the paper concludes that the development of marketing activities specifically tailored to the needs of Belarusian tourists will help to increase tourist arrivals and tourists’ expenses.


Introduction
The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors of the global economy.Nowadays it becomes more and more important, especially for specific destinations, because tourism contributes to the creation of new jobs, increase of additional revenue, development of tourist infrastructure, preservation of cultural heritage and, consequently, leads to the overall improvement of the quality of life.Therefore, marketing of tourism destinations should help to meet visitors' needs as well as achieve strategic objectives of a destination.
This article is devoted to the analysis of a chosen segment -travelers from Belarus.The relevance of the topic is explained by the popularity of Vilnius among Belarusian tourists.For example, in 2013 Belarusians made up 19.8% of all visitors of Lithuania (Statistics Department of Lithuania, 2014).In addition, Vilnius is geographically close to the major cities of Belarus (minsk, Grodno, Vitebsk).moreover, both Lithuania and Belarus have more than 500 years of common history as these two states were parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Rzeczpospolita.
The main research aim of this work is to reveal the real situation in the inbound tourism development from Belarus to Lithuania.In order to achieve the goal, the following objectives have been set: • to identify the dynamics of inbound tourism from Belarus to Lithuania for 2008-2013; • to define the preferences of tourists from Belarus and the main target audience on the Belarusian tourist market.As for the research methods, a scientific literature analysis and synthesis were used for the literature review.The study itself was conducted with a secondary statistical data overview and quantitative survey.
The current research leads to a better understanding of the complexity of Vilnius as a tourism destination, reveals the historical and cultural ties between Lithuania and Belarus and deals with the identification of the main tourists' needs and preferences.

Basics of tourism destination
Tourism destination is a complex notion.The United Nations World Tourism organization, or UNWTo (2007b), describes a destination as a physical space in which a tourist spends at least one overnight, which includes tourism products such as support services and attractions and tourist resources within one day's return travel time.From the marketing perspective, the destination can be viewed as more than a mere geographical place.on the contrary, it is an area which consists of all services and offers consumed by a tourist during the stay and stands for the tourist product consisting of natural resources, services, artificial facilities and information that in certain markets competes with other products (Bieger, 1998).obviously, different tourism elements are assembled in accordance with tourists' preferences and expectations (Gunn, 1994;Hu and Ritchie, 1993).Thus, it is reasonable to describe destination as a "collection of experiences gained by the traveller" (Gunn, 1982).In this article, destination is considered as a combination of different elements (tourist attractions, food and accommodation facilities, transport infrastructure) which help to create a unique customer experience during a trip.
Scientists have also different approaches towards the types of the destination.Laws (1995) distinguishes destinations as administrative units (capital cities, developed traditional centres and touring centres, purpose-built resorts).a narrower approach regards destinations as geographic objects which can attract tourists (Coccossis et al., 2002), and hence they are divided into coastal areas, islands, protected areas, rural areas, mountain resorts and historical settlements and towns.In this research, Vilnius is regarded as a capital city and at the same time a historical town.

Approaches to the structure of a destination
Destination as a tourism unit has been studied by many scientists.middleton and Clark (2001), for example, examine it from marketing management orientation.In accordance with it, a destination is regarded as a traditional commodity product which is "sold" and promoted by distributors, intermediaries and public organizations.
another approach is based on customer orientation and represents a further developed marketing management concept (komppula, 2005), because it places consumer value in the centre of all decision-making activities.Thus, a destination is meant to deliver first of all intangible psychological benefits, and they shape the formation of a tourism product.all service providers form a circle around the core, which is customer value, and contribute to its increase by offering the services which a consumer needs.
one more view which takes a wider perspective to destinations is its sociocultural construction.In this case, a tourist area consists of market actors and market activities and can take various forms across different spatial and temporal contexts.Destinations, therefore, are multicultural markets, so it is necessary to understand the symbolic and process-related nature of the markets (moisander, Valtonen, 2006;Venkatesh, Penazola, 2006).
S. Page ( 2009) examines a destination through the viewpoint of tourism supply which consists of tourism businesses taken together.The scopes of business activities, which are directly or indirectly involved in tourism destination marketing, include tour operators and intermediaries, attractions and activities, transportation, accommodation, catering and entertainment.Finally, a very transparent approach to destination is the economic geography-oriented point of view presented in Figure 1, combining two destinations participating in the tourism process (Saraniemi, kylanen, 2011).
The first destination (A) generates tourist flows, whereas the second one (B) accepts them.Therefore, it is necessary to promote spatial resources, attractions and services offered by the accepting destination, on the market of the generating destination and tailor the offered tourist product to the tourists' needs.Tourism destination marketing, therefore, helps to bring these two destinations together.
Destination marketing process marketing is "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large" (american marketing association, 2014).according to kotler, marketing is "satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process" (kotler, armstrong, 2000).Destination marketing is then referred to as the entire process of developing a tourism destination product and promoting it to refining and redeveloping it -from the initial consumer research through promotional campaigns to monitoring customer attitudes and sales (UNWTo, 2009).Hence, marketing of tourism destination, first of all, means designing a tourist area which meets the needs of a target audience.If the marketing strategy is properly developed, the region appeals to local residents as well as to tourists, and investors meet their expectations and needs.
Tourist segments can be identified from two perspectives, the first one focusing on tourist behavior and the second one focusing on people (moscardo, Pearce, morrison, 2001).They are also reflected in the segmentation approach proposed by UNWTO (2007a), which takes into account such factors as demographic (age, gender, education, lifecycle stage, income), geographic (location of residence (far from or close to a destination)), psychological / lifestyle (benefits, values, attitudes, personality attributes (preference of active or passive tourism, readiness to discover new destinations or repeat trips to already visited places) and behavioural (types and frequency of travelling, types of information sources and distribution channels used (tourism websites, internet booking engines, tourist information centres, leaflets, brochures)).Analysis of tourist preferences according to the proposed features helps to identify a real target audience on the tourism market.
Creating a marketing strategy for a destination is a complex process, because a lot of stakeholders are involved in it, and a destination is a dynamic entity.The more objects are involved, the harder it is to make them cooperate, not compete.It is advisable to use the concept of 4Ps (product, price, promotion and place) to mark out and identify the main components of destination marketing strategy (kotler, Bowen, makens, 2013).a tourist product is a complex experience which is produced and delivered by a wide interrelated range of suppliers who create a 'value chain' (interrelationship among suppliers).accommodation, transport, attractions or events, facilities and services are compound elements of every tourist product, and they should be marketed together, as a single unit, in order to meet the tourists' needs.Prices are usually charged by suppliers of tourist services, taking into account both the needs of the business and those of the customer.Hence, pricing strategy should correspond to the main attributes of the target audience (age, income, preferences).Promotion of a destination implies the development of communication channels with visitors and other stakeholders.The main objective of promotion strategy is to deliver the right message to the right segment at the right time at effective costs.Place means channels through which a customer gets information about the product and buys it.all in all, it is the total environment where the supplier, intermediaries and customers operate (advertising, direct mail, internet, exhibitions, wholesalers, tour operators, booking engines).

Research design
The main task of the questionnaire was to describe the customer profile of a Belarusian tourist and find the target audience.There were 26 questions divided into four groups.The first group describes a customer's characteristics (age, gender, marital status, sphere of activities, income).The second group included general questions about trips to Vilnius (the frequency of visiting Vilnius, the form of trips, the main purposes, accommodation places, duration of travel).The third group was about customer satisfaction and value of the trip (how tourists are satisfied with shopping / accommodation facilities and tourism offers provided, which kinds of excursions they prefer, the importance of transport accessibility, a variety of cultural heritage and accommodation services).The fourth group concerned the questions connected with the money spent for the total trip and separate elements of the trip (excursions, shopping, transportation, accommodation).The survey was conducted from october 15, 2014 till october 28, 2014.
The sample size for the survey with the Z value equaled to 1.96 (confidence level was 95%), standard deviation 0.5, and confidence interval 0.06 was 267 people.All data were calculated in SPSS.
The questionnaire was worked out in Russian, because for most Belarusians it was better to understand their mother tongue than a foreign language.The questionnaire for tourists was distributed online in the social communities devoted to tourism from Belarus to Vilnius in social networks.It was a direct and comfortable way to reach the audience.

Complexity of Vilnius as a tourism destination on the Belarusian tourist market
Tourism between countries is influenced by politics.It is important to mention that due to the common cultural and historical past of Belarus and Lithuania, there are many places in Vilnius remaining from those times which are connected with Belarus.as to political relations between Belarus and Lithuania, they were officially established in 1992 by signing an agreement on diplomatic relations.In 1993, the embassy of Lithuania in minsk and the embassy of Belarus in Vilnius were opened.Since then, the collaboration of the countries takes the form of Belarusian-Lithuanian economic forums, meetings of ministers of foreign affairs, days of national culture, and political conferences.So, the political relations of the countries have cannot hinder the tourism development between Belarus and Lithuania ("Political relations of Lithuania and Belarus", 2014).

Dynamics of inbound tourism from Belarus to Lithuania
The task of this secondary data analysis is to define the intensity of inbound tourism development between Belarus and Lithuania.
First of all, statistical tourism indicators show the popularity of Vilnius among tourists from Belarus.Such indicators as the number of tourists accommodated in accommodation establishments, the number of nights spent in accommodation establishments, trips of inbound visitors from Belarus were collected for 2008-2013 (since fully detailed statistics on inbound tourism is issued only from 2008).The time period of six years allows identifying the main trends in the tourism development between the two countries.The values are presented in Table 1 and Figure 2.  The values of all indicators increased from 2008 to 2013, and the percentage of trips from Belarus in total trips to Lithuania almost doubled (20% in 2013 versus 11% in 2008).This means that Lithuania is very popular on the Belarusian outbound tourism market, and Lithuania also benefits from this tendency because a larger number of tourists results in a larger money spending.
Thus, the main measurements for trips of the same-day visitors are the total number of trips, gender (male / female), purpose of visit (leisure, holidays / business / visiting relatives / health improvement / shopping / other) and means of transport (car / bus / railway / air / ship, ferry / other).Their nominal values (in thousands) are presented in Table 2.The trips of tourists are characterized by the total number of trips, gender (male / female), nights spent, average nights spent, total expenditure (mill.eUR), average expenditure per trip (eUR), average expenditure per day (eUR) and purpose of visit (personal (including trips for leisure and recreational purposes, visit of relatives and friends, health improvement and shopping) or business) (Table 3.).So, the total number of trips in 2013 almost doubled in comparison with 2008 (408.0 thousand and 208.6 thousand, respectively).Total expenditure increased as well, though the average expenditure per trip and day slightly decreased (390.1 eUR in 2012 and 361.1 eUR in 2013, 149.2 eUR in 2012 and 105.5 eUR in 2013, respectively).This can be explained by the increase of total trips to Lithuania (the total expenditure is divided by a larger number of people that visited Lithuania).most tourists arrive in Vilnius by personal motives (308,3 thousand on personal purpose versus 99.6 thousand on business purpose in 2013).

Features of Belarusian tourists' segment
Though the sample size for the questionnaire was 267 people, 296 respondents took part in the survey which helped to better find the main trends in the topic under consideration.The responses to the most important questions are presented below.all data were calculated in SPSS.
as to the gender, two groups which took part in the survey are presented almost equally, with 51.7% of women and 48.3% of men.In terms of the age, most respondents answered to the survey questions to be 26-35 years old (32.8%).Two other large groups were represented by people aged 18-25 (29.1%) and 36-45 (28.4%).The least represented group was people aged 46 and over (9.8%).according to the marital status of the respondents, 64% of the tourists were married and 36% single.as far as the share of the respondents with or without children is concerned, 60% of the tourists had children, whereas 40% did not have children.Regarding occupation, most respondents were employed (58%).27% of the tourists were students and the rest 15% were self-employed.The average monthly income of most respondents was 501-1000 euro (42%).all in all, the distribution of other income levels was quite equal (23% of tourists with income under 250 euro, 18% of tourists with 251-500 euro of monthly income, and 17% of people whose income was 1001 euro and higher).Tourists stay in Vilnius for 2.16 days on average (which can be equaled to one weekend) and spend 342.91 euro for a two-day trip.
Figure 4 shows the main purposes of travel to Vilnius.according to the results of the survey, the most popular ones are shopping (33%), excursions (28%), and events (23%).another important purpose should be highlighted: 11% of the respondents travel to Vilnius in order to go to other countries (transit).

FIG. 4. Purpose of travel to Vilnius
Source: by the authors, based on the author's calculations.
As for the frequency of travelling to Vilnius, almost one third of the responden visited Vilnius more than 4 times, 26% of the tourists were in Vilnius 3 times, 31%and 10% -only once.
Concerning the most preferred type of accommodation, almost half of the res (49%) choose hotels during their stay in Vilnius.21% of tourists stay at apartments visitors prefer hostels, whereas stay at friends and relatives' and guest houses are chos and 6% of the respondents respectively.
Most visitors from Belarus prefer individual form of travel (82,8%), whereas travelers choose trips organized by travel agencies.As far as tourist information ce as for the frequency of travelling to Vilnius, almost one third of the respondents (33%) visited Vilnius more than 4 times, 26% of the tourists were in Vilnius 3 times, 31% two times and 10% -only once.
Concerning the most preferred type of accommodation, almost half of the respondents (49%) choose hotels during their stay in Vilnius.21% of tourists stay at apartments, 15% of visitors prefer hostels, whereas stay at friends and relatives' and guest houses are chosen by 9% and 6% of the respondents, respectively.most visitors from Belarus prefer an individual form of travel (82.8%), whereas 17.2% of travelers choose trips organized by travel agencies.as far as tourist information centres are concerned, 59% of travelers from Belarus prefer not to visit them.meanwhile 41% of the respondents go there during their stay, and this is a significant number.as for the company tourists travel with to Vilnius, 45% of respondents travel with their family, whereas 30% of tourists prefer to visit Vilnius with friends.25% of the visitors travel alone.
The respondents were also asked to choose the tourist offers which they miss in Vilnius.In the response to this question, 51% of tourists have indicated that Vilnius does not have enough typical Belarusian offers (excursions, events).What is more, 81% of the respondents answered that they would like to have more offers connected with the Belarusian heritage in Vilnius.
The average daily expenditure was analyzed by such categories as entertainment, souvenirs, shopping, restaurants and cafes, accommodation, transport.according to the responses, the least amount of money is spent for souvenirs (under 20 euros by 96% of tourists).most of all the money is spent for shopping (151 and more euros by 46% of tourists).most travelers (82%) spend 21-50 euro for transportation.as for accommodation, a half of the respondents (49%) pay 51-75 euro per day.62% tourists are ready to spend 21-50 euro per day for both restaurants and cafes and entertainment.
Most tourists are satisfied with such options as transport to Vilnius, price of the trip, offers and attractions in Vilnius, shopping facilities, catering facilities, accommodation facilities and entertainment offers (56-71%).Figure 5 shows the level of satisfaction with certain tourist offers in Vilnius (5 is "absolutely satisfied", 4 -"satisfied", 3 -"neutral", 2 -"dissatisfied", 1 -"absolutely dissatisfied").The degree of dissatisfaction is quite low as well (1-8%).9-21% of the respondents have a neutral attitude towards the notions under consideration.11-32% of the people are absolutely satisfied with the offers.To sum up, the higher degree of dissatisfaction -8% -stands for "entertainment offers", while the highest degree of absolute satisfaction -32% -is with "Shopping facilities".Personal safety and facilities for shopping are the most important items.Personal safety was assessed as important by 55% of the respondents and as very important by 39%. as for the shopping facilities, 42% of people indicated them as important and 46% as a very important category.easy access to Vilnius is important for 64% and very important for 19% of the respondents.as for the diversity of attractions, it is important for 61% and very important for 19% of the tourists.The quality of accommodation is important for 61% and very important for 18% of the visitors.Friendliness of local residents was assessed as important in 69% and important in 18% cases.Cuisine is important for 57% of the respondents as well.The situation differs a little bit with the following categories.So, 53% of tourists indicated night life in Vilnius as an absolutely not important part of their trip.Sports facilities are absolutely not important and not important in 25% and 65% of cases, respectively.most respondents (39%) have a neutral attitude towards events in Vilnius, though 30% of people assess them as being important.Spa facilities do not play an important role (38% of the respondents chose them as neutral, 30% -as not important).Conference facilities are absolutely not important for 67% of tourists, whereas the variety of souvenirs is not important in 40% and neutral in 30% of cases.Figure 6 shows the level of importance of main features describing a tourist trip.as for the scale, 1 stands for "absolutely not important", 2 -"not important, 3 -"neutral", 4 -"important" and 5 -"absolutely important".Concerning the dependence of the purpose of travel on the number of trips, if respondents had been only once or twice in Vilnius, their purposes were mostly shopping (89.6% and 85.5% respectively) and excursions (75.2% and 72.3%).People who travelled to Vilnius more than twice (3-4 times and more) chose shopping (80.6% and 82.5%, respectively), excursions (74.2% and 71.9%, respectively) and transit (67.7% and 68.4%).as for the connection between age and company people travel with, tourists aged 18-25 tend to travel with friends (77.9%) or family (75.6%),people from 26 to 35 years old travel mostly with family (64.9%), and the respondents aged 36-45 and 46 and over travel with their families (84.5% and 100%, respectively).
most people who earn under 250 euro stay in Vilnius for 3 days (33 tourists), all other people the average income of 251-500, 501-1000 and 1001 euro and higher stay in Vilnius for 2 days (31, 73 and 30 respondents, respectively) (Table 4).The dependence of excursion types on the age is presented in Table 5. Tourists aged 18-25 and 26-35 choose to discover the city on their own (29.1% and 70.1% respectively) and historic excursions (72.1% and 72.2% respectively).The respondents from 36 to 45 years choose to discover the city on their own (82.1%), while people aged 46 and over tend to have mostly historic excursions (86.2%).Therefore, a typical visitor of Vilnius from Belarus (a prospective customer) can be described as follows: a married employed man or a woman aged 26-45 with average monthly income 501-100 euro, has children, has been to Vilnius more than 4 times, prefers individual travelling, usually travels with family, visits Vilnius for shopping, events, excursions and transit purposes, stays in Vilnius for 2 days and spends about 340 euro, stays at hotels and sometimes visits tourist information centres, would like to have more Belarusian offers and thinks there are not enough typical Belarusian offers in Vilnius, spends most money for shopping and least -for souvenirs, is generally satisfied with all tourist offers, pays much attention to personal safety, easy access to Vilnius, quality of accommodation, attractions, facilities for shopping, friendliness and cuisine and little or no attention to night life, sports, spa and conference facilities and travels to foreign countries more than 4 times a year.

Conclusions
Although tourism products offered in Vilnius are diversified (historical, gastronomic, thematic, events, extreme and sports tours), excursions connected with the Belarusian heritage in Vilnius are not offered.
Since Vilnius as a tourism destination is at the development stage now, there is a potential for the further growth of tourist arrivals, from Belarus as well.
most respondents (81%) would like to have special offers devoted to Belarusian history and culture in Vilnius.
The number of Belarusian tourists to Lithuania is increasing (20% of all tourists came from Belarus to Lithuania in 2013).
Therefore, a typical visitor of Vilnius from Belarus (a prospective customer) can be described as follows: a married employed man or a woman aged 26-45 with the average monthly income 501-1000 euro, has children, has been to Vilnius more than 4 times, prefers individual travelling, usually travels with family, visits Vilnius for shopping, events, excursions and transit purposes, stays in Vilnius for 2 days and spends about 340 euro, stays at hotels and sometimes visits tourist information centres, would like to have more Belarusian offers and thinks there are not enough typical Belarusian offers in Vilnius, spends most money for shopping and least for souvenirs, is generally satisfied with all tourist offers, pays much attention to personal safety, easy access to Vilnius, quality of accommodation, attractions, facilities for shopping, friendliness and cuisine and little or no attention to night life, sports, spa and conference facilities, and travels to foreign countries more than 4 times a year.
The results of this paper can be used by non-governmental organizations (Vilnius tourist information centres, Vilnius municipality and State Tourism Department under the ministry of economy of Lithuania) and Lithuanian inbound tour operators for the development of the marketing strategy of Vilnius for the future.The implementation of the marketing tools offered in the article will help to increase tourist arrivals to Vilnius and get more income.

FIG. 4 .
FIG. 4. Purpose of travel to VilniusSource: compiled by the authors, based on the authors' calculations.

FIG 5 .
FIG 5. Level of tourists' satisfaction with certain categoriesSource: compiled by the authors, based on the authors' calculations.

of the same-day visitors from Belarus in thousands of people
FIG 3. The dynamics of the total trips of the same-day visitors from Belarus by purpose of visit in percentageSource: Tourism Statistics ofLithuania, 2008Lithuania,  -2013

Level of importance of certain categories during a trip to Vilnius
Source: compiled by the authors, based on the authors' calculations.