Tourist Typologists and Modelling Destination Development

Question 1

Tourist Typologies

Answer 1

• Many tourism researchers try to explain tourist recreation behavior by developing typologies
• Typologies aim to classify and compare
• Observing factors: psychological, social, cultural and geographic
• Try to explain to role of certain variables, including:
– Income
– Taste
– Race
– Social class
– Religion
– Age

Question 2

Tourist Typologies

Answer 2

• The classifications of tourists are primarily based on their behaviour
– Early form of market segmentation
• Number of typologies have grown over the years
– Cohen (1972)
– Plog (1973)
– Smith (1977)
• Typologies serve as a guide to tourism business owners
– Products,services and facilities should be provided for visitors
• Marketers and planners use typologies to
– Guide marketing, planning, development and management functions

Question 3

Eric Cohen (1972): Four types of tourist

Answer 3

1. Organised mass tourist buys a package
   – Popular destinations
   – Travel with a group
   – Inflexible predetermined itinerary
   – Not to stay far from the beach (environmental bubble)
2. Individual Mass
   – Buys a loose package that allows them more freedom. e.g. fly, drive
   – Still rely on formal tourist industry
3. The Explorer
   – Arrange their own trip and seeks to ‘get off the beaten track’
4. The Drifter
   – Avoids contacts with tourist industry and identifies with host communities
   
   • living with them and adopting their customs

Question 4

Plog’s typology of tourists

Answer 4

• Allocentric type 
    – Discovery, foreign cultures, adventure 
• Near - Allocentric type 
    – Seek challenge, eco tourists 
• Mid - centric type 
    – Seek relaxation, entertainment 
• Near - psychocentric and psychocentric types 
    – mass tourism, safety, guided tours

Question 5

So what do Models do?

Answer 5

• Identify a number of core relationships and the variables that drive them;
• Explain relationships that are identified in a simplified manner that can be used for understanding or in a more complex form, for planning.
• Models aim to predict, identify, understand, simplify
• Transform reality cases in guide theories
• Break paradigms and follow innovation wave

Question 6

Models of Individual Decision-Making

Answer 6

No two individuals are alike and differences in attitudes, perceptions, images and motivation have an important influence on travel decisions. • Attitudes depend on an individual’s perception of the world;
• Perceptions are mental impressions of, say, a destination or travel company;
• Travel motivators explain why people want to travel and they are the inner urges that initiate travel demand; and
• Images are sets of beliefs, ideas and impressions relating to products and destinations.

Question 7

Why are models important?

Answer 7

It is important for tourism managers to research and understand the way in which tourism consumers make decisions and act in relation to the consumption of tourism products and selection of destinations to visit.
• The needs, purchase motives and decision process associated with the consumption of tourism;
• The impact of the different effects of various promotional tactics;
• The possible perception of risk for tourism purchases, including the impact of terrorist incidents;
• The different market segments based upon purchase behaviour; and
• How managers can improve their chance of marketing success.

Question 8

Models of Tourist Motivation

Answer 8

• Motivators can be split into two groups: 
1. Those which motivate a person to take a holiday 
2. Those which motivate person to take a particular holiday 
• What motivates you to travel? 
    1. To relax mentally
    2. Discover new places and things 
    3. Avoid the hustle and bustle 
    4. Relax physically 
    5. Be in a calm atmosphere 
    6. Have a good time with friends 
    7. Build friendship with others 
    8. Use my imagination 
    9. Gain a feeling of belonging 
    10. Challenge my abilities 
    11. Use my physical abilities/skills in sport 
    12. Develop close relationships

Question 9

How are your travel motivations formed?

Answer 9

• Personality: gregarious or loner, adventurous or cautious, confident or timid,
• Lifestyle: fashionable, preoccupied with health, live alone, enjoy parting,
• Past experience: good & bad,
• Past life: nostalgic, military battle,
• Image: as viewed by others.

Question 10

What influences motivations?

Answer 10

• Most would be influenced by type of holiday
• No tourist is likely to be influenced by one motivator
– escape winter
– desire for physical exercise as contrast with sedentary lifestyle
– pursue hobby- surfing, eating
– want to relax
• Many trips represent a compromise between those in a group:
– View of a dominant member may prevail
– Each member go their own way for at least part of the time (unstructured)
– Group stayed together but each member will be allowed to choose what they will all do on one or two days

Question 11

What influences motivations?

Answer 11

• Tourism industry assumes that segments can be defined by demographic criteria:
– Young people want to party, relax, drink, dance and make lots of friends;
– Elderly people presumed to have preference for sedate activities such as coach tours, bowls & bingo;
– Parents are thought to be pre-occupied with the need to keep their children happy.

Question 12

Summary of Motivations

Answer 12

The dimensions of the concept of motivation in the context of travel are difficult to map.
• The idea that travel is initially need-related and that this manifests itself in terms of wants and the strength of motivation or ‘push’, as the energiser of action;
• Motivation is grounded in sociological and psychological aspects of acquired norms, attitudes, culture, perceptions, etc., leading to person-specific forms of motivation; and
• The image of a destination created through various communication channels will influence motivation and subsequently affect the type of travel undertaken

Question 13

Models of Consumer Behaviour in Tourism

Grand models can be found to share several commonalities:

Answer 13

• They all exhibit consumer behaviour as a decision process.
• They provide a comprehensive model focusing mainly on the behaviour of the individual consumer.
• They share the belief that behaviour is rational and hence can, in principle, be explained.
• They view buying behaviour as purposive, with the consumer as an active information seeker.
• They believe that consumers limit the amount of information taken in, and move over time from general notions to more specific criteria and preference for alternatives.
• All the ‘grand models’ include a notion of feedback.
• The models envisage consumer behaviour as multi-stage triggered by the individual’s expectation that a product will satisfy their needs.

Question 14

Are models really worth all the effort?

The models are criticised as:

Answer 14

• Too theoretical and not grounded in any empirical testing;
• They are beginning to date and no new models have been developed since the mid 1990s, yet the travel sector has changed considerably;
• They do not help in the understanding of how the market would react to further ‘shocks’ to the system such as September 11th;
• They view tourism from a western developed country perspective, yet we know that China will be the main generator of international travel in years to come;
• They fail to recognise the increasingly diverse types of tourist or tourism being purchased – market sectors are more varied and less stable than they were in the early to mid 1990s; and
• They fail to predict or identify the behaviour of tourists or markets

Question 15

Tourist Area Life Cycle (TALC) Model

Answer 15

• Exploration
  
  • Small number of tourist attracted by culture / natural beauty
  • Limited numbers
  • Few facilities exist
• Involvement
  
  • Some involvement by locals to provide tourists with facilities
  • Recognisable tourist season
  • Developing tourism market
• Development
  
  • Large numbers of tourists
  • Control of market moves from locals to external bodies e.g. TNC’s •Conflict between residents and tourists
  • Consolidation
  • Tourism constitutes major part of economy
  • Tourist numbers plateau
  • Older facilities seen as “second rate”
• Stagnation
  
  • Peak tourist numbers reached
  • Resort no longer fashionable
• Decline or rejuvenation
  
  • Attractiveness continues to decline
  • Visitors lost to other resorts / destinations
  • Resort becomes dependent on day / weekend visitors from limited geographical area
  • Unless efforts made to modernize and rejuvenate resort will continue to decline