THE NATURE OF
DEMAND IN DIFFERENT
SEGMENTS OF THE
TOURISM MARKET
Chapter 10
Week 3
THE FAMILY MARKET
 Nuclear family
 Represents the core market for many tour operators and types of
products, including camping and caravaning trips, self – catering
holidays and theme parks
 There is an existence of children  many families choose
holidays that meet the needs of their children
 These needs will vary depending on the age of the children
1) Babies : Holidays are chosen primarily based on baby’s safety and
comfort. E.g. parents could avoid countries with poor hygiene standards
and choosing airlines and hotels offering special services for babies, e.g.
free baby food
2) Infants : (2-5 y.o.) : short journey to the destination can be the priority as
a child may get bored on log journey. Safety is still a concern, in this
case parents will choose the place to ensure that young children who are
practicing their walking will not get into danger on balconies or near
swimming pools
 3) Early school-age children (from around 5-12 y.o.)
 Children at this age often want to play with children of a similar age and may be content with the
simple pleasures of play areas and swimming pools
4) Teenagers (from 13-18 y.o.)
 At this age, they want to be more independent and enjoy more adult activities
 When the young person wants to take a holiday seperately from their parents, it could take the form
of :
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An educational trip organized by their school
An organized children camp
An activity based trip or a farm -based vacation
A single sex holiday with a group of friends
 Number of children in a family has an impact on demand
 Families with several children may need to look for an economically priced
holiday  camping , caravaning holidays, self-catering holiday
 The Tourism industry works hard to attract this lucrative market by
providing discounts for children and free children plces
 However, not enough emphasis on single parent families
HEDONISTIC TOURIST
 The pleasure-seeker
 Usually associated with younger people and brand names such as Club
1 8-30 in UK
 It is the development of the original four Ss concept of sun,sea,sand,
and sex and also the 5 th , ‘sangria’ which is the consumption of alcohol
 The main motivator is the desire for physical pleasure and social life,
fashion
 In recent year s , there is a growing number of people joining
distinctive night life and par tying in ‘Ibiza’
 In terms of daily life style , ver y dif ferent from family market
 They tend to wake up late and then spend their time around swimming pool
 They will usually then go out partying and not get to bed until the following
morning
 Often travel in a single sex group of friends
 Prefer the freedom and economy offered by simple, self -catering accommodation
 Critisms on Hedonistic tourists
 Heavy drinking can lead to fights and problematic with host
community – the so-called ‘ lager lout ‘ phenomena
 The risk of spreading HIV or AIDS
THE BACKPACKER MARKET
 Another form of tourism which appears to appeal mainly to a
younger market is backpacking
 Tourists use a rucksack or backpack rather than suitcase to
carry all their need for their trip
 Some more characteristics are :
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It is an independent travel rather than packaged travel
A desire to keep expenditure to minimum
A tendency to try to get off the beaten tourist track
An extended stay more than the usual duration of one to two weeks
of a normal holiday
 Most of the backpackers are usually students, who can have
long vacations
 This can involves people taking a year out from their education
 Before they begin their college or after completing a college
 Backpacking was ususaly popular amongst young people
from developed economies, e.g. US, UK, the Netherlands,
Germany, Australia, and Japan
 An early example of truly global tourist
 As their behavior tend to be the same, regardless of their nationality
 E.g. same source of travel media, such as guidebooks namely ‘ lonely
Planet’ and ‘ Rough guide’  staying in same types of accommodation
and visit the same attractions
 In Europe, ,a well-known phenomenon calling backpackers
who travel across Europe by rail is ‘ Inter -railer’
 These tourists utilized discounted rail-fare packages offered to young
people
 This market is likely to grow more in the future, because :
 Rise in students number across the world
 However, unlikely to become popular within other groups in
society, due to most working people are unlikely to get more
paid holiday
 In the future, it could begin to appeal more of early retired
people who have the time and want to be more adventurous
while travelling
EXCURSIONISTS AND DAY-TRIPPERS
 Traveling for one day or less for leisure purpose
 Generally, they are domestic tourist
 Is the core market for most visitor attractions, many seaside
resorts, and some rural areas
 Day trippers usually do not plan for their trips but rely more
on spontaneous decision (e.g. deciding in the morning where
to go)
 Largely a car-based market, also coach excursions
 Day trippers are major consumers of food an drink services
and leisure shopping facilities, but not a major market for
accommodation
 In some cases, this market can be international, e.g. a
shopping trip from Switzerland to Milan (4 hrs by train), Thai
or Malaysian people go shopping in SG or HK
THE ‘SNOWBIRD’ MARKET
 Climate or weather change is the main motivator
 Started from Northern Europens travelled to Southern Europe in the
summer to get the suntan
 People travels to warmer place to escape the cold weather at
home
 Some characteristics of this market:
 Long duration trip , from 4 weeks up to four months
 Normally are older, retired people who have the time to take such a long
vacation
 Motivations of these older people are :
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Escape the cold weather
Reduce their expenditure on heating at home
To improve their health
Make new friends and have more socialize lifestyle than they might in their own
community
ETHNIC MINORIT Y TOURISTS
 Ethnic minority groups are some small group of dif ferent
nationalities that live and based their family in one particular
country
 In many developed economies, just only few people from this
group are regular purchasers of the majority of Tourism
Industry
 E.g. Asian in Western, Black American in US
 Ethnic minority communities grow in various countries and
become more integrated and gain greater economic power
THE SHORT-BREAK MARKET
 Usually, it is a travelling from 2 – 5 days
 Can be both International and domestic
 A growing phenomenon in the newly developing economies in
Asia
 It is considered to be an additional holiday ( not a main
annual holiday
 Examples of the short -break market
 Romantic weekends for couple
 Shopping trips, e.g. Russian tourists flying to Paris to buy luxury
products, Sg people visiting Indonesia to buy some hand made
furniture
 Visiting friends and relatives trip
 Health spa breaks for relieving stress and improve tourist’s health
 Unlike day trippers market, short -break tourists tend to:
Not only planned and booked well in advance  to
rise the sense of anticipation
-
But also last minute planning and booking as a reaction to stress
from the working life, or celebration of some good news
 In a developed world, this market is likely to grow as work
pressures arising from the competitive environment