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How Can We Understand the Tourists?

How Can We Understand the Tourists?. Tourists are the main characters in the tourism industry and the tourism industry exists to cater to their needs. Tourism businesses acknowledge the fact that their success depends also on how much they know and understand their tourists.

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How Can We Understand the Tourists?

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  1. How Can We Understand the Tourists?

  2. Tourists are the main characters in the tourism industry and the tourism industry exists to cater to their needs. Tourism businesses acknowledge the fact that their success depends also on how much they know and understand their tourists.

  3. A professional understanding of the consumer is at the core of the successful business practice in the tourism industry. (Goeldner and Ritchie, 2003) A good grasp of who their tourists are would guide businesses in their operations, marketing and research, and development tasks.

  4. Clearly, a study on the behavior of tourists is very vital to the tourism industry. Understanding tourists require a background on psychology and consumer behavior.

  5. Tourism businesses should be concerned with what motivates tourists, how they make decisions, what they think of the products they buy, how much they enjoy and learn during their holiday experiences, how they interact with the local people and environment and how they feel about their holidays.

  6. Knowing why tourists travel is the most fundamental question among the study of tourists’ behavior. Although it is the most basic question, knowing the wants and needs of tourists in traveling is a complicated task. The wants and needs of tourists are often regarded as travel motivators.

  7. Motivation Something that stimulates interest or causes a person to act in a certain way.

  8. Needs and wants of tourists are seen as the driving force that causes an individual to travel. (Cook, 1999), simply explained travel motivation as the drive to travel.

  9. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  10. This theory by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 work, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” explains that as humans meet basic needs, they seek to satisfy successively higher needs that occupy a set of hierarchy.

  11. This pyramid of five levels represents human needs which Maslow further grouped into two as deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are related to physiological needs while growth needs are related to psychological needs.

  12. The Maslow hierarchy of needs is an explanation of an individual’s behavior. • In tourism, every piece of information that would help the business owners, managers, and staff understand tourists’ behavior is important.

  13. This hierarchy of needs is used in the tourism industry in several ways. • First, tourism experts also consider these different levels to be intrinsic factors that could drive a person to travel.

  14. For example, an individual may join a cruise because of his/her need for friendship. One of the attractions of joining a cruise is the many opportunities it provides its of meeting new people.

  15. The level of needs would provide tourism businesses a guide in understanding their travel market and thus advertise their products effectively.

  16. A cruise liner would emphasize in their advertisement the chances of meeting people instead of traveling to new places.

  17. Second, tourism businesses could come up with different facilities and services with features that attempt to address certain needs of tourists.

  18. Tourism businesses also uses them as their competitive edge over others. The hierarchy of needs guides them in coming up with specific service that they know would be important to their clients. It may not be a main attraction but it may also enhance tourist experience.

  19. For example, services that address needs of belonginess or esteem such as elite programs and frequent visitors program or simple tokens that make the guests realize that the tourism business knows them specifically.

  20. Leisure Ladder Model

  21. This model is developed by Philip Pearce. • It attempts to explain individual behaviors on the basis of stages in a tourist life cycle which is said to be similar to an individual’s experience of work.

  22. It is assumed that as the tourists become more experienced, they also become more proficient and effective. • It is somehow similar to Maslow hierarchy of needs because the model also explains that tourists ascend only to higher needs once lower needs for a tourist experience are fulfilled.

  23. Relaxation and Bodily Needs Need for basic services (food, space, toilet) for restoration and personal maintenance and repair Stimulation Need for excitement and safety (fun and thrill of rides, experience of unusual, out-of the-ordinary settings and different foods and people) Relationship Need to build and extend personal relationships (tenderness, affection, joint fun, joint activities, altruism and being directly involved) Self-Esteem and Development Need to develop skills, knowledge and abilities (how others see a person and one’s desire to be competent, in control, respected and productive) Fulfillment Need to feel peaceful, profoundly happy (magical as if transported to another world, spiritual and totally involved in the setting)

  24. Crompton’s Push-and-Pull Model

  25. This model emphasizes that the choice of destination of a tourist is driven by two forces: push and pull. • The first force, push, pushes a tourist away (from home) and the second one, pull, is a region-specific lure that pulls a tourist towards a destination.

  26. The push refers to a general desire to go and be somewhere else, without specifying where that may be. • These are the intangible, intrinsic desires of a tourist to go on vacation. • Pull, on the other hand, refers to the tangible characteristics or attributes of a destination that are primarily related to its perceived attractiveness.

  27. This push-and-pull model was exemplified by Lundberg, in an advertisement directed towards potential tourists showing sunny beaches with sunbathers. • The advertisement promotes a specific location and generates a push force that attempts to pry potential tourists out of their homes.

  28. Tourist Decision-Making Model

  29. Another way of understanding tourists is knowing how they decide on tourism product/services and destinations. • Their decision-making process would provide tourism businesses insights to effective marketing and advertising, techniques to effectively reach their target markets.

  30. Schmoll Model • This emphasize four successive fields which he believed exert influences on the decision of tourists. • Travel Stimuli • Personal and social determinants • External variables • Characteristics and features of the service (refer to figure 7. page 24)

  31. Travel Stimuli • These comprises external stimuli that can awaken an individual’s desire or need to travel in the form of promotional stimulation, personal and trade recommendation • Examples: advertising and promotion, travel literature, suggestions, reports from other travelers, travel trade suggestions and recommendations.

  32. Personal and Social Determinants • These determine customer goals in the form of travel desires and expectations and the objective and subjective risks thought to be connected with travel. • Examples: socio-economic status, personality features, social influences and aspirations, attitudes and values, motivations, desires, needs and expectations.

  33. External Variables • These involve the prospective traveler’s confidence in the service provider, destination image, past experience and cost and time constraints. • Examples: confidence in travel trade intermediary, destination service, previous travel experience, assessment of objectives, subjective risks, constraints in time, cost, etc.

  34. Characteristics and Features of the Service • These also have a bearing on the decision and its outcome. • Examples: cost/value relations, attractions/amenities offered, range of travel opportunities, quality/quantity of travel information, type of arrangement offered.

  35. Matheison and WallModel

  36. Similar to the Schmoll model, Matheison and Wall model also identifies four interrellated factors: • Tourist profile Age, education, income, attitude, previous experience and motivations. • Travel awareness Image of destinations’ facilities and services which is based upon the credibility of the source. • Destination resources and characteristics Attractions and features of the destination • Trip features Distance, trip duration, and perceived risk of the area visited

  37. Five-Stage Model of Decision-Making by Matheison and Wall Felt need/ Travel Desire Information Collection and Evaluation by image Travel decision (choice between alternatives) Travel preparations And travel experience Travel satisfaction Outcome and evaluation

  38. Hansal and EiseltModel

  39. Hansal and Eislt (2004) provided a simple explanation of the decision-making process of tourists. This process is divided into two phases which are described as:

  40. Planning phase – where travelers decide on the basic parameters concerning their trip. Decisions in this phase are made at home, usually over a significant amount of time prior to the trip. Sometimes initial decisions are subjected to modification or completely revamped.

  41. Modification phase – during which details are decided. This phase covers modifications made during the trip. Examples are choices of specific sites that were advertised in brochures that travelers obtained from tourist information centers or decision to stay at a hotel whose services are announced on a billboard.

  42. Models describing tourist decision-making process would make a long-list. They have basically the same purpose and that is to guide the tourism industry in understanding how tourists get motivated in traveling, what things influence or discourage them to travel, and where they information, and purchase their selected product. In short, these models have two fundamental roles: to identify factors that influence the decision-making of the tourists and to enumerate the stages of their decision-making

  43. Tourist Typology

  44. Tourist Typologies • Refer to classifications of tourists based on their behavior. • Over the years, the number of tourist typologies has grown. It is an indicator of how marketers have relied on understanding their consumers through their behavior. • These typologies serve as guide to tourism business owners as to what products, services and facilities should be sold to certain tourists having the same behavior.

  45. Marketers and planners as well as managers of tourism businesses consider these typologies to guide their marketing, planning, and development and management functions.

  46. Several tourist typology models were developed by tourism experts and scholars. Some of the more popular models include the following: • Plog’s Psychocentric-Allocentric Model • Cohen’s Tourist Typology • Global Travel Survey • Pearce’s Travelers Category

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