Keywords

JEL Classification

1 Introduction

The nautical tourism sector is studied from three different perspectives according to its industry: the boarding of sailboats and motorboats owned, the rental of boats (charter), and the cruise industry (Luković, 2012). All of them have experienced high growth over the last thirty years (Çakıroğlu, 2019; Vlasic et al., 2019), with the service activity of marinas closely associated with boat rentals and yacht owners (Luković, 2012), in such a way that the traditional yacht clubs (Chen et al., 2016) focus their activity toward yacht owners while the business of the new marinas is more oriented toward yacht charter tourism (Nowacki, 2015).

Europe has a coastline of 68,000 km (European Environment Agency, 2020Footnote 1), with a total of 4.500 marinas, 1.75 million berths, and 6.3 million yachts (Vlasic et al., 2019) with around 222.000 berths in France, 130.000 in Spain, as well as a similar number in Italy, 14.000 in Croatia, and 9.000 in Greece (Chen et al., 2016) as the most prominent countries within the European Union.

Basically, the European marina market is concentrated in five different areas, which different port configuration characteristics given the differences in coastline and climate (Kizielewicz & Luković, 2013):

  • The Mediterranean Sea (the European coastline)

  • European Atlantic coast (below the Arctic Circle)

  • The Baltic Sea and countries around the Arctic Circle

  • Continental European part (inland waters/freshwaters)

  • The Black Sea.

The term “Nautical” comes from the Greek ναυτικός (naftikós) which means boat or sailor. In turn, the adoption of the word marina to define this type of facility is a term of Italian origin and means a small port that receives recreational boats (Klarić et al., 2015). An accurate definition of a marina related with the basic services required by this type of user is that offered by the “National Association of Motor and Boat Manufacturers”Footnote 2 in 1928 as a place where boaters can properly moor their boats, launch them, service them, stock up on of fuel and other navigational needs, taking a hot shower, eating on land, and being close to commercial, communications, and traffic infrastructure (Luković & Bilić, 2007, 116).

Nautical tourism is not limited to the possession of a boat and the use of marine resources, but can be framed with all those other forms of tourism that have an economic, social, and environmental impact on local development (Bizzarri & Foresta, 2011), positively affecting the economies of nearby towns with the generation of direct and indirect income (Kopke et al., 2008). For this reason, the indicators limited to the number of berths of the infrastructure of a port are insufficient to know the real and potential value of the marina. There are two determining factors related to the maritime area where it is located, which are the depth of the water in the moorings and the effect of the tides: the minimum depth must be 2,44 m, which will affect the number of boats and type of these that can be moored in each marina.

Therefore, a full service marina requires (Smythe, 2010):

  • appropriate depth of water for the draft of sailboats,

  • sufficient land for dry boat storage,

  • repair services,

  • parking access,

  • complementary services.

There is no uniform definition of the characteristics and functions that a marina should have, despite the existence of international institutions and associations that regulate this activity, presenting the sector with a lack of unified criteria and procedures. In the same way, the works developed on this subject are scarce and present diverse approaches, most of them observed as case studies aimed at various topics such as user experience (Benevolo & Spinelli, 2021; Paker & Vural, 2016; Silveira & Santos, 2014), the sustainability of facilities and their integration into the environment (Andres et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2014), the application of new technologies (Maglić et al., 2021; Rafał et al., 2022), tourism capacity (Benevolo & Spinelli, 2021; Payeras et al., 2011; Vlasic et al., 2019), or the situation within the legal framework where they fit (Alcover et al., 2011; Škorić et al., 2012).

The main objective of this work is to find works related to the general satisfaction of the services of the users of marinas that have been published in recent years with the idea of establishing solid elements that favor future quantitative and qualitative studies, supported by scientific methods that support advanced statistical techniques and predictive methods. In this direction, the following specific objectives are described as follows:

  • SO1: Find works on satisfaction in marinas based on quantitative studies and surveys

  • SO2: highlight the impact of the publications made on this topic.

  • SO3: Find consistent study factors on which to base further studies.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Satisfaction in Marinas

Users of Nautical Ports and marinas demand a series of services that are essential for the practice of their activity in this type of facility. They are usually described as a series of attributes that rather do not allow user dissatisfaction (Shen et al., 2021), which are grouped into the services intrinsic services of the marina, destination experiences on land, charter products, products of support to marina, and basic destination attributes (Mikulić et al., 2015), being essential the degree of perceived satisfaction even considering the bad weather conditions that are not usually an obstacle to the activity enjoyment (Arabadzhyan et al., 2021; Jovanovic et al., 2013), basically with attributes such as nature, the feeling of freedom, and flexibility that navigation brings (Butowski, 2018).

Scientifics works on satisfaction in marinas such as those by Gracan and Uran (2002); Mikulic et al. (2015) and Lam-González (2020) have focused on the degree of functionality using Likert scales without understanding how different marina attributes influence boating experiences (Shen et al., 2021) and that the combination of these in a destination within the user experience drives the level of tourist satisfaction (Albayrak et al., 2013;Toro-Sánchez, 2022). According to Pizam et al. (2016), Likert scales tend to offer positive-biased responses and assume the linear relationship between satisfaction and dissatisfaction when the use of advanced statistical methodologies such as structural equations, observing that this relationship is not linear (Jin et al., 2015).

There are study models on tourist satisfaction that seek to solve the combined analysis of the attributes of the experience, distinguishing these into three types:

  1. (a)

    Basic attributes that determine the minimum requirements of the experience so that if they are not met, dissatisfaction appears gradually, in the same way that if these attributes appear in the appropriate utility, the degree of satisfaction remains stable (Jin et al., 2015) bearing in mind that dissatisfaction generally causes negative word of mouth (Alegre & Garau, 2011). Specifically, in the case of marinas, it would be the sanitary services, the qualities of the employees, the water and electricity connections on the pontoons, as well as the cleanliness of the waters on which they are located and the space conditions applicable to these.

  2. (b)

    One-dimensional attributes that improve the experience to the extent that the user can enjoy it (Palumbo, 2015) such as the activities offered by the port in the form of restaurants, supermarkets, tourist information offices, and recreational activities.

  3. (c)

    Attractive attributes which are not expected by users, so that they do not show dissatisfaction if they do not appear within the experience (Alegre & Garau, 2011; Jin et al., 2015). These attributes are more linked to external infrastructures in relation to the destination such as means of transport, connectivity, cultural offer as well as the existence of social networks linked to the experience that facilitate and expand communication as well as the use of new technologies and digital usability in the user experience.

In the same context, the services provided by the marinas can be classified as primary—related to the mooring itself, secondary—electricity and water connections, administrative procedures, gasoline supplies, parts, and management of sailors, and additionally entertainment and tourist activities—supermarket (Klarić et al., 2015). In spite of the degree of quality with which they are appreciated in this series of services, they influence the perception of satisfaction, especially in the education of the port staff and their friendliness as the main factor (Margariti et al., 2017) together with the dimensions that describe the quality of the berths and guarantee of the equipment (Gracan et al., 2016).

It is important not to forget crucial aspects such as those related to the prices of both general and adjacent services and the legislation related to navigation that concerns each harbor (Škorić et al., 2012), which can clearly present themselves as barriers to demand due to the heterogeneity shown in both aspects, even presenting as a differential factor in both flexible pricing policies and those adapted to the required services (Vlasic et al., 2019), as well as more lax legislation and permissive legislation toward the enjoyment of nautical experiences (Alcover et al., 2011). The price can distinguish between ordinary and privileged services, the most important factor for owners being an applicable and understandable fee base based on a calendar scheme (Çakirglu, 2019).

An accentuated dissatisfaction or even frustration is normally more expressible than satisfaction (Mikulić et al., 2015); for this reason it is important to determine the critical factors in the experiences of marinas, beyond the models that simply focus on levels of satisfaction, and satisfaction and exceeding expectations, given the high component of basic service that characterizes them. Therefore SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1985), ECOSERVE (Khan, 2003), and RENTQUAL (Ekiz et al., 2010) models measure the different dimensions of the quality of a service treating them as a global satisfaction of the service instead of the individual satisfaction of each one of the attributes of the global service, so the expectation and improvement of each attribute in particular cannot be explained with the use of these models (Shen et al., 2021).

Kuzma (2003) offers a more primal view of services in marinas, although it is shown at a practical level dividing services specifically in terms of destinations of use—boats, people, and transport—in such a way that it can be oriented toward the target audiences in question and matter of its use, depending on the degree of development and its integration in the environment and the real needs of the users. On the other hand, the degree of professional preparation (Lam-González, 2019) is really destined toward the provision of the specific service, managing resources efficiently and with user orientation (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
A data model for services provided by yacht ports. The main categories are, organizational services, and technical and executive services. Organizational services have Harbour Master or Office. Technical services have services provided to vessels such as berths for yacht, crane, engine repair, services provided to means of land transport such as taxi, bus transport, and services provided to people such as, toilets, showers, bar, grocery, etcetera.

Source Kuzma (2003), Lam-Gonzalez (2019) and authors’ own elaboration

Service in Marina model.

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2.2 Sustainable Development

In the tourist context, the Marinas offer to the local entities a great opportunity for development that can benefit from them and a growth model (Luković, 2012), with a diversity of types of marinas depending on how they are integrated or not in the environment in which they are framed. Basically, two types can be schematized by classification (Kizielewicz & Luković, 2013):

  • Non-Integrated Marina Models: Marinas on the Island of Greece

  • Integrated Marina Models:

    • within the city (Frapa, Horta (Azores), Split (Croatia), Marinas in the city of Athens, Italian Marinas)

    • within a tourist environment (Benalmádena, Puerto Sherry, Costa Azul in France, Palma de Mallorca).

Functionally, the most used development model is through the transfer of public bodies—who generally hold ownership of the coastal land—transferred to other public and private government bodies that jointly or may not manage the activity of the port as a natural asset. (Clark & Munro, 1994). Thus, service management toward a tourism market orientation with a focus on boaters and the destination’s own tourists, affected or not to navigation, is presented as crucial for the development of the marina as a tourist product (Luković & Bilić, 2007) and continuous development in improving the quality of life and employment opportunities of the integrated social environment in the geographical area where it is located (Klarić et al., 2015). Manifestly, this development model is expressed in the EU's 2020 objectives in The European Strategy for Coastal and Maritime TourismFootnote 3 where it concludes that:

Coastal and maritime tourism needs an ambitious policy framework. The Commission, Member States, regional and local authorities, industry and other stakeholders must take targeted action in coherence with EU policies that have an impact on this sector.

The assessment of the environment by opinion groups and managers dismisses the importance of the attractiveness of the landscape and neighboring tourism resources and does not give it much importance (Yang et al. 2014).

2.3 Touristic Development

Despite the perspective of the marina as a tourist destination (Luković, 2012), it is possible to approach the nautical tourism offer from a purely product-service approach (Benevolo & Spinelli, 2021) with a multi-offer vision (Silveira & Santos, 2014) and poly-functional activities (Luković & Bilić, 2007). Specifically, nautical tourism in marinas, both as regular boaters-owners and as charter yachts (Besteiro Rodríguez, 2004), offers a great opportunity given its level of spending compared to other types of tourism (Payeras et al., 2011) and very similar to another source of tourism with high potential such as golf (Alcover et al., 2011) with high levels of daily spending—94% more than traditional tourism—and longer stay in destination—11,8 days compared to 8,9 days of traditional holiday tourism in Spain (Payeras et al., 2011), which allows it to be classified as a premium product.

Frequently, the marina and sports port sector is limited to a single value proposition (Heron & Juju, 2012) ignoring the possibility of approaching new markets, while the destination concept does not respond to the real needs of nautical tourism (Lam-González, 2019), so a vision of segmented marketing—lacking in this sector (Paker & Vural, 2016)—is presented as an essential tool within tourism development.

The yachting tourism experience is significantly influenced by five attributes, including basic marina services, destination experiences on land, rental products, marina support products, and basic destination attributes (Mikulić et al., 2015). Curiously, this type of user does not value the tourist offer around the port in a consistent way (Yang, L et al., 2014), with which the need to establish a segmentation of the different users when tourism development actions are established in the marinas and that they are not limited, especially taking into account the public ownership of the land where they are located.

Benevollo and Spinelli (2021) argued that the segmentation in the different users of the marinas can be based psychologically on the benefit it brings to the user in their motivations or based on the attributes of the service itself, so it is important again to detect which of the elements of the marina offer are important for each type of user and how they are identified by them as essential, appreciated, or indifferent. In the same way, changes in user behavior are the forces that should direct the tourist offer (Poon, 1993) and in this case nautical (Silveira & Santos, 2014) given its ascetic and fun potential. For tourism development, it is necessary to generate links between the marina and its surroundings with strategies that connect the outstanding attractions of nearby cities (Nebot et al., 2017) as well as their natural environment together (Martín & Yepes, 2019).

Another solution that appears open to lower-income users is the yacht rental market (Chen et al., 2016), which allows the growth of nautical tourism in marinas, together, on the other hand, with the mega-car sector, yachts (Pallis & Lekakou, 2004), where the marinas require both technical and legal specifications to be able to provide such services and the cooperation of the different stakeholders for the development of this business (Corres, 2007).

3 Methodology

The research method used is the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) (Ramey & Rao, 2011; Schaller et al., 2019) and in particular following the guidelines of similar studies related to recent dates in the tourism field (Abarca et al., 2020; Perdomo-Verdecia et al., 2022; Rojas-Sánchez et al., 2022). In recent years, more and more articles have been found on the user satisfaction in marinas, although in a number certainly scarce and with diverse methodologies and generally focused only on expert panels (Martín & Yepes, 2019, 2022; Payeras et al., 2011) and few of them taking into consideration the opinions of marina users (Jovanovic et al., 2013; Mikulić et al., 2015; Shen et al., 2021). The heterogeneity of the bibliography and the thematic focus of the articles especially in the case study lead us to justify the use of SLR based on the following points (Abarca et al., 2020; Ramey & Rao, 2011) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
A block diagram for research methodology. From top to bottom, it has planning through selection criteria, conducting through data retrieval and data cleaning, analysis through indicators elaboration and results, and reporting through results summary and research summary.

Research methodology SLR. Source (Abarca et al., 2020; Ramey & Rao, 2011; Schaller et al., 2019)

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This work raises the following questions to give rise to research (RQ):

  • RQ1: What are the main areas and topics of current research in Marina user satisfaction?

  • RQ2. What are the main constructs that have been investigated in current research on Marina user satisfaction?

  • RQ3. What are the gaps in existing research and possible areas for future research?

Then, we use the secondary sources of data through the search in the different platforms, Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, where we use the search terms related to the objective of the work that deals with the satisfaction of users in marinas and marinas, finding few or no references using such terms. Using the terms of searches terms more amplios give the scarcity of publications found generating a pilot search as detailed:

  • WoS: marina satisfaction + nautical tourism marinas + yacht tourism: 27 documents from 2011 to August 2022

  • Scopus; (TITLE-ABS-KEY (marinas AND tourism) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (nautical AND tourism) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (Yacht AND tourism) 35 documents from 2005 to August 2022

In addition to the references taken from the first analysis on the publications found, we consider including a number of 8 more references from the Google Scholar reference base. The Google Scholar search also ensured that no important work had gone undetected in the WoS and Scopus searches, summarized in 60 publications. The results obtained were analyzed using the same terms as in the other searches.

In a first view, we observe the existence of a large number of articles directly related to a specific topic that is the Sustainability of Marinas. The most profound analysis of these publications does not lead to the conclusion that the vast majority focus on technical studies far from the purpose enunciated on the satisfaction of users, although obviously, sustainability and social commitments are the aspects to be considered within our objective although far from the service perception of the users.

Specifically, it is a total of 33 articles. Although we discard our work objectives, 8 of them are mentioned as relevant due to the relationship they may have in different studies more focused on the sustainability of marinas and as a complement to our theme addressed (Table 1).

Table 1 Relevant articles on Marina sustainability
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4 Results

The publications obtained from the databases will be later analyzed according to the aspects they deal with. First of all, we observe the scarcity of articles found in a broad reference deal with user satisfaction in marinas. The following graph shows the number of articles found in the last twelve years (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
A horizontal bar graph indicates the number of publications in Marina satisfaction. It plots the years 2010 through 2022 against numbers. The highest bars are for 2011 and 2019, both at number 5. The lowest bars, numbered 1, are for 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2020.

Number in publications in Marina satisfaction from 2010

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Likewise, of the articles found, the important weight of the issuing of Croatian origin stands out—46% of the number of publications—in relation to the rest of European countries, of which Spain, Italy, and Poland also stand out; the latter very much focused on articles related to inland navigation (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
A pie-chart denotes percentage of publication in Marina satisfaction. The data is for, journal with number 25 and percentage 64.1, conference with number 13 and percentage 33.3, and book with number 1 and percentage 2.6.

Percentage of publications in Marina satisfaction in the from 2010 by type

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Specifically, the table shown below details the articles obtained through the metho dology described and on the basis of data used with the indicated search terms, where a list of 39 publications is offered. This relationship affects the description of some of the specific objectives initially set in this study, such as how the publication deals with a specific type of study, quantitative or qualitative, while detailing the type of methodology used in each of the studies. On the other hand, the relationship between the existence of a questionnaire within the study also stands out, given the importance revealed for the study by deciphering the indicators and constructs for future studies (Table 2).

Table 2 List of articles that address the theme of Satisfaction in Marinas
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The table below shows, in order of importance, the relationships of impact journals and decreasing order that contain articles and the number of them, on the subject of user satisfaction in marinas (Table 3).

Table 3 List of impact journals of Satisfaction in Marinas.
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5 Discussion and Conclusions

In this section, we propose to answer the different questions raised in our analysis.

Q1 What are the main areas and topics of current research in Marine user satisfaction?

Table 1 shows publications highlighted in this research along with the development of sustainability itself; within the specific analysis filter applied to the satisfaction of marina users, we find six groups of study areas, specifically: confidence in the service, quality of the service, supply and demand, sustainability but understood as a component of satisfaction and in relation to social responsibility, tourism and technology, and social networks. They are detailed in the following table and related to the articles that deal with the different areas (Table 4).

Table 4 Main subjects related in each publication
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Trust in the service is shown above all in studies developed in panels of experts and descriptive analyzes (Santos & Perna, 2018; Mundula et al., 2020) and above all the aforementioned work by Parker and Vural (2016) that proposes the segmentation of users that are addressed with quantitative analysis with main components by Benevolo and Spinelli, (2021) and (Shen et al., 2021) in the Kano satisfaction model, both implementing user questionnaires in their analysis. At this point, it is interesting to cite the work of Jovanovic et al. (2013) who, with quantitative methods, address dissatisfaction closely related to the area of service quality, also using questionnaires in their analysis.

The quality of the services, different from the trust in which more personal factors are appreciated (Margariti et al., 2017; Mikulić et al., 2015), is addressed in the selection in comparative studies either between different case studies or in reference to the applicable regulations. As a work where quantitative methods are used, mention the one by Mikulić et al. (2015).

Sustainability is especially addressed in the case studies and in its impact on the local population (Ugolini & Ivaldi, 2017; Mundula et al., 2020) and in the degree of user satisfaction, although not showing it as representative (Shen et al., 2021).

Several articles on supply and demand are also detailed, addressing different sectors, highlighting Lam-González, (2019) and Haas and Heiner (2011), specifically where the niche of large yachts is contemplated.

Technology and the use of social networks is a little-cited area of work, although many articles point out the need to promote work in this line (Mundula et al., 2020; Paker & Vural, 2016). It is worth highlighting the interesting work on positioning by Rafał et al. (2022) as a proposal that connects the activity of several freshwater ports and the use of social networks by Benevolo and Spinelli (2019).

Q2. What are the main constructs that have been investigated in current research on Marina user satisfaction?

As previously mentioned, the satisfaction of the user of the marinas is observed by variables above all related to the quality of the service and the confidence generated, with indicators closely related to the specific services offered by the marina, as detailed above in Fig. 1, and above all those related to essential services such as the quality of the moorings, sanitary services, water quality, attention and professionalism of the staff, etc. It seems correct that any study model should approach the different indicators progressively in terms of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the services to the extent that the user identifies them as essential or not within their recreational navigation activity.

The different constructs have been contemplated in the studies using different methodologies that are detailed in Table 2 and that we summarize in this Fig. 5

Fig. 5
A horizontal bar chart for the frequency of methodologies. It plots methodology versus frequency. The bars for Generalistic and Case are the highest with frequency 5. The bars for Legal, Kano Model, Travel Cost method, component explor, Regression, 2 Q C V 3 Q, and correlations are the lowest with frequency 1.

Source authors

Frequency of methodologies used in the different studies.

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Q3. What are the gaps in existing research and possible areas for future research?

The following figures show the types of analysis carried out (Fig. 6) and which of them contemplate questionnaires (Fig. 7).

Fig. 6
A pie chart for analysis type. The data is for tech type with Delphi at 5.1%, Descriptive at 38.5%, Quantitative at 20.5%, and Qualitative at 35.9%.

Analysis types

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Fig. 7
A pie chart for the frequency of yes and no in questionnaire. No is at 56.4% and yes is at 43.6%.

Frequency of questionnaire

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In general, it is observed that few studies are carried out with quantitative analyzes and the vast majority of these are based on panels of experts. In general, a deficit is observed in the proposal of questionnaires toward the users of the marinas and even propose new data sources with more segmented users of origin while the satisfaction indicators are extended toward the proposals of tourist services and related to the social interaction (social networks) and the use of technologies in the sector.

The selection of the literature shows, as a whole, a scarce development of the theme, especially focused on the application of advanced study methodologies that require more exhaustive previous developments, such as an account where the ideal indicators are determined that explore the satisfaction of the users of the marinas.

Contemplating the users of the marinas as a diverse and segmented compendium (Paker & Vural, 2016) in the face of both economic and environmental sustainability of the tourist offer (Bizzarri & Foresta, 2011) of the marinas and marinas, the studies focused on these. These objectives require a user orientation beyond the opinions of experts and stakeholders based on Delphi-type methodologies and descriptive analyzes of the sector, which are the basis of the bibliography found in this study. Also, a clear distinction and cl of the services at the time of being assessed within a questionnaire expressed a clearer vision of the critical points in the final assessment of user satisfaction with a clear vision toward the use of statistical methodologies advanced as structural equations and partial least squares with extensive development already in social sciences.

In the same way, the systematic review developed in this study fails to observe a specific work model on which to determine studies on satisfaction, although there are references that can be very encouraging for future methodological development, such as works already developed in the hotel sector (Alcover et al., 2011) or the similarities found with another niche in the tourism market such as golf tourism (Payeras et al., 2011), both endowed with extensive literature.