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; deep down they are insecure about status

Big spenders: Heavily dependent on extensive and intensive service; want luxury and are prepared to pay more to get it; usually experienced and discerning tourists.

New enthusiasts: Inexperienced tourists, eager for newness; energetic, mainly young and single; prefer resort holidays for socializing and for active recreation

Dedicated Aussies/Kiwis: Nationalistic in narrow chauvinistic sense, they choose to confine their tourism to domestic itineraries, wanting to feel they know and are secure in their home country

Stay-at-homes: These go on trips but want the destination to be much like home in its security; unimaginative, seek passive rather than active holidays; highly motivated by status of having been there, done that; sightseers.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Maslow argued that our individual needs fall into five broad categories. These five categories formed a hierarchy. This is based on the premise that each of the needs expressed in a category should be satisfied before

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