CULTURAL TOURISM AND STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION. THE ALGARVE STUDY CASE

Abstract

This paper aims to further explore the relationship between cultural tourism and young people (namely, students in Higher Education at the Algarve University). The choice of the target population group was based on the assumption that these students have a differentiated profile in terms of tourism from other population segments. At the same time, it was based on the recognition that young people with higher levels of education tend to have a higher degree of interest in cultural tourism. In order to obtain a critical opinion about the research object, a survey (based on a questionnaire) was carried out on a group of university students from the School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism at the University of the Algarve, Portugal. The Chi-square test for independence between two variables and a factorial analysis were carried out with the purpose of understating the tourism cultural receptivity and participation. The results show a high students participation in cultural tourism namely in cultural events.