Understanding The Tourist As A Consumer, Including Conceptual Approaches To Tourist Motivation.

Understanding the tourist as a consumer, including conceptual approaches to tourist motivation.

The subject of consumer behavior is the key to all marketing activity which is carried out to develop, promote and sell tourism products. Clearly, if we are to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing activities, we must try to understand how consumers make their decisions to purchase or use tourism products. If we understand their behavior patterns, then we will know when we need to intervene in the process to obtain the results that we want. We will know who to target at a particular time with a particular tourism product. More importantly, we will know to persuade them to choose certain products, which we will have designed more effectively to meet their particular needs and wants. An understanding of consumer behavior is therefore crucial to make marketing activity more successful.

Consumer behavior can be described as ‘the actions a person takes towards purchasing and using products and services, including the decision-making process that precedes and determines those actions’. From the above statement, it is possible to say that actions carried out by persons (tourists) are very important for development of the tourism industry. Therefore, it is suggested here that in order to become a successful manager in the tourism industry, managers must be able to identify and understand consumer needs and wants and subsequently market programs that will satisfy those mentioned items.

According to Kotler globalization has changed tourist consumer behavior as it has the capacity to create impacts on 1) cultural criteria (culture, subculture, social class), 2) social criteria (reference groups, family, roles and status), 3) personal criteria (age and life cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, personality and self-concept), 4) psychological criteria (motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes). Smith (1977) and King and Hyde (1991) point out that among the factors impacted by globalization, psychological factor of the tourists are considered to be the most important as it directly involves tourist consumer behavior. Smith (1978) and King and Hyde (1989) have formulated classifications of people who travel, which are proved to be very useful for tourism planning and marketing (Kotler, 1999). The classifications are as follows:

Classification of Tourists into Psychographic Types

Type Characteristics

New indulgers: Escapists, seeking comforts and fantasies of pampered luxury; major motivation is to escape stress; are experiential more than acquisitive; trendies; want the good life.

Anti-tourists: Try to be seen as independent, non-conformist, and as the opposite of the symbols of ‘tourist’, which they avoid if possible; put very high value on authenticity;

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