Knowledge of Tourists’ Behavior: A Key Success Factor for
Managers in Tourism Business
T. Choibamroong
ABSTRACT
This paper presents how knowledge of tourist
behavior plays an important role in tourism planning
and marketing activities for tourism business
managers. It analyzes the role of tourist consumer
behavior and tourist typologies in globalization era.
In addition, discussions on how knowledge of tourist
consumer behavior can be useful in developing,
promoting and selling tourism products are presented.
บทคัดยอ
บทความนี้อภิปรายถึงความสําคัญขององคความรูดาน
พฤติกรรมการทองเที่ยวของนักทองเที่ยวเพื่อการวางแผน
การทองเที่ยว โดยเฉพาะอยางยิ่งดานการตลาดการทองเที่ยว
ซึ่ ง รั บ ผิ ด ชอบโดยผู ดํ า เนิ น ธุ ร กิ จ ทางด า นการท อ งเที่ ย ว
เนื้ อหาบทความนี้ ประกอบไปด วยการวิ เคราะห ลั กษณะ
พฤติ กรรมการบริ โภคของนั กท องเที่ ยวและประเภทของ
นั กท องเที่ ยวในยุ ค โลกาภิ วั ตน เพื่ อ การพั ฒนาประชา –
สัมพันธและการตลาดการทองเที่ยว
INTRODUCTION
Answering whether knowledge about tourists’
behavior is useful for practicing managers of tourism
industries would involve a consideration of various
important issues regarding current tourism trends.
In general, tourism can be defined in behavioral
terms as persons who travel away from their normal
residential region for a temporary period of at least
one night. Their behavior involves a search for
leisure experiences from interactions with features
or characteristics of places they choose to visit
(Leiper, 1997). Referring the Leiper’s statement, it
can be confirmed that understanding tourist consumer
behavior is not merely of academic interest but doing
so would provide knowledge for effective tourism
planning and marketing. Although some writers (e.g.
Meethan, 2001; Jelincic, 1999) consider that understanding the behavior of tourism consumers is less
important in the globalization era since tourists tend
to have very similar traveling habits, Douglas and
Wind (1987) and Kean (2003) insist that the world
is not yet globalized; therefore, tourist consumer
behavior of each country is still different and needs
to be understood according to the fact that there are
many determining factors influencing travels’ supply
and demand (Horton, 1984; Assael, 1995; Sharpley,
1996). Swarbrooke and Horner (1999, p. 3) state:
The subject of consumer behavior is key to the
underpinning of 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.
Believing in the above concept, it is a task of
this paper to prove if the above statement is correct.
Therefore, this paper sets up a framework for in-depth
analysis as follows:
Figure 1 Framework for In-depth Analysis to show that understanding tourist consumer behavior is useful for
practicing managers of tourism industries
Tourism Marketing Activity
Understanding Tourist
Consumer Behavior
Effectiveness and Efficiency of
Marketing Activity
To develop
tourism products
To promote
tourism products
To sell tourism
products
The above figure explains that understanding
consumer behavior is a critical means for succeeding in
developing, promoting and selling tourism products.
This paper therefore presents how knowledge of
consumer behavior plays an important role in tourism
planning and marketing activities. Additionally, as
globalization has a significant role in shaping tourist
consumer behavior (Jelincic, 1999), discussions will
focus on its impacts to the tourism industry. Before
presenting the analysis, definitions and concepts of
tourist consumer behavior and globalization will be
presented.
TOURIST CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN GLOBALIZATION ERA
McColl et al (1994, p116) define consumer
behavior 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 (Anon, 1985). Given this, marketing managers
must also pay attention to analyzing consumer
behavior. This need has been recognized since
currently consumers have been turning down what
appears to be winning offers and have become more
and more discerning when questioning and comparing products and services. Given the regard, it
becomes clear that consumers’ behavior is never
simple and is affected by many different factors,
especially in globalization era.
Globalization here is described as the growing
interdependence and interconnectedness of the modern
world through increased flows of goods, services,
capital, people and information.
Technological
advances and reductions in the costs of international
transactions drive this process. The result is a spread
of technology and ideas, a rise in the share of trade in
world production, and an increase in the mobility of
capital (Munt, 1994). It is possible to say that by
being influenced by the globalization process, tourists
today have more motivations to travel, which directly
affects tourist behavior (Pembroke, 1996).
Kotler (1999) shows that 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 persons who travel, which are proved
to be very useful for tourism planning and marketing
(Kotler, 1999). The classifications are as follows:
Table 1. Valene Smith’s typology of tourists
Type
Numbers
Elite
Off-beat
Unusual
Incipient mass
Mass
Charter
Rare
Uncommon
Occasional
Steady flow
Continuous
Massive
Adaptations to local norms
Adapts fully
Adapts well
Adapts somewhat
Seeks Western amenities
Expects Western amenities
Demands Western amenities
Source: Smith (1977)
Table 2. 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 e.g. Sunlust 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.
Source: King and Hyde (1989)
Table 3 Discussions of Tourist Typologies by Selected Authors
Author
Characteristics
Dalen (1989)
• Modern materialists want to get a tan to impress people when they get home.
They like partying and are more concerned with drink than food. Hedonism is their
main motivation.
• Modern idealists also seek excitement and entertainment but want both to be more
intellectual than the last group. They do not, however, want mass tourism or fixed
itineraries.
• Traditional idealists demand quality, culture, heritage, famous places, peace, and
security.
• Traditional materialists always look for special offers and low prices and have a
strong concern with personal security.
American Express
(1989)
• Adventurous, who are independent and confident and like to try new activities
• Worries, who worry about the stressing travel and their safety and security while
on holiday
• Dreamers, who are fascinated by the idea of travel and they read and talk a lot
about their travel experiences and different destinations
• Economizers, who simply see travel as a routine opportunity for relaxation rather
than as a special part of their life. As such they want to enjoy holidays at the lowest
possible price
• Indulges, who want to be pampered when they are on holiday.
Smith (1989)
• Explorers are a small group who travel almost as anthropologists
• Elite tourists are experienced frequent travelers who like expensive tailor made
tours
• Off-beat tourists aim to get away from other tourists
• Unusual tourists make side trips from organized tours to experience local culture
• Incipient mass tourists travel to established destinations where tourism is not yet
totally dominant
• Mass tourists expect the same things they are used to at home
Perreault, Dorden
and Dorden
(1979)
• Budget travelers who had medium incomes, but sought low-cost vacations
• Adventurous tourist who were well educated and affluent and showed a
preference for adventurous holidays
• Homebody tourist were cautious people who took holidays but did not discuss
their vacation with other people, and spent relatively little time planning it
• Vacationers were a small group who spent lots of time thinking about their next
holiday. They tended to be active people in lower paid jobs
• Moderates had a high predisposition to travel but were not interested in weekend
breaks or sports.
Cohen (1972)
•
•
•
•
Westvlaams
Ekonomisch
Studiebureau
(1986)
• Active sea lovers who want to take a holiday by the sea, with a beach close by
• Contact-minded holiday makers value making new friends on holiday, and being
hospitably received by local people
• Nature viewers want to be well received by the host population while enjoying
very beautiful landscapes
• Rest-seekers want a chance to relax and rest while on holiday
• Discovers like cultural holidays and some adventure, but they also like to meet new
people
The recreational tourist for whom the emphasis is on physical recreation
The diversionary tourist who seeks ways of forgetting their everyday life at home
The experiential tourist who looks for authentic experiences
The experimental tourist where the main desire is to be in contact with local
people
• The existential tourist who wants to totally immerse themselves in the culture and
lifestyles of their vacation destination.
• Family-orientated sun and sea lovers, who were the largest group, like to do
things together as a family and seek ‘child-friendly’ activities
• Traditionalists value safety and security and try to avoid surprises by sticking with
familiar destinations and types of holiday.
Gray (1970)
• Wanderlust itineraries tend to be multi-destination. They want to see and feel and
learn what is unique, distinctive about specific places reflecting cultural needs
rather than recreational.
• Sunlust depend on the individual's motivation and tastes such as sun, snow, peace,
noisy socializing, warm, cool weather, beautiful scenery, heavy metal music with
lot of people raging all night.
Plog (1977)
• Plog sought to link personality traits directly with tourist behavior, and divided
people up into psychocentrics, and allocentrics. He argued that the former were
less adventurous, inward-looking people. They tend to prefer the familiar and have
a preference for resorts that are already popular. Allocentrics, on the other hand, are
outward-looking people who like to take risks and seek more adventurous holidays.
Source: Modified from Swarbrooke and Horner (1999)
Table 1, 2 and 3 clearly show that understanding
the psychology of tourists is very important for
tourism planning and marketing. It is also possible to
say that different types of persons traveling also have
different traveling behaviors. Therefore, holding the
ability to understand each group of traveling people
helps practicing managers develop, promote and sell
tourism products effectively.
HOW IS TOURIST CONSUMER BEHAVIOR USEFUL IN DEVELOPING TOURISM PRODUCTS?
Poon (1994) believes that tourists are the
products of changing population demographics and
are more experienced, flexible and independentminded. Tourists have changed values and lifestyles,
which affects tourist demand. Plog (1974) shows that
most American tourists look for cultural and educational values while Singaporean tourists seek for
novelty and business (Swarbrooke and Horner, 1999).
Given this, most tourism products developed in USA
are cultural and educational-oriented (Hobson and Ko,
1994). In Singapore, due to geographical limitations,
most tourism products are business and man madeoriented.
Elain Orr, general manager of the Hong Kong
marketing office of Pacific Club, says that the profiles
of the Asian traveler are changing. Asian people are
looking for value-added holidays and prefer city
holidays. The old travel purposes have been changed
in Asia. Edward (1990) points out activities, such as
shopping and eating out, are major attractions for
Asian tourists at present. Therefore, it is not surprising
to find that Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau are
currently the regional destinations visited (Kau, 1994).
Due to this, it is not surprising as well that most tourist
products (modern department stores and luxurious
multinational restaurants) are mushrooming in Hong
Kong, Singapore and Macau.
In western countries, the values of conservation,
health, and nature are spilling over to travel and
tourism in a major way. The European Travel Data
Center shows that European travelers want nature
to be prominent in their vacations (Poon, 1994). Take
German tourists as an example. It is found that nearly
60 % of them said that the experience of nature was
the most important reason for their main holiday trip
in 1990 (Swarbrooke and Horner, 1999).
Given this fact, it is found that many tourismreliant countries have developed various tourism
products such as spas, natural-based resorts, and ecotourism destinations in order to supply the changing
tourism demands. In this case, Thailand can be taken
as an example. It is found that as a result of a current
tourism trend in health-concerned tourism, Thailand
has developed many spas and health-based tourism
sites to supply the tourists’ demands (Circle of Asia,
2003). This shows an important role of tourist
consumer behavior in developing tourism products.
It is possible to say here that understanding tourist
consumer behavior is very beneficial for developing
tourism products in order to supply the tourism
demand.
HOW TOURISM CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IS
USEFUL IN PROMOTING TOURISM PRODUCTS?
In the globalization era, tourists tend to be
concerned about safety, security, and health as a main
consideration for travel (Jamieson, 2001; Klanarongran,
2001; Douglas and Derrett, 2001). Responding to these
demands, many countries have attempted to promote
tourism products particularly fashioned around healthbased tourist attractions.
Take spas, a health-based tourist attraction in
Europe, as an example. It is found that around 20
million people in Europe, including Russia, visit spas
(Douglas and Derrett, 2001). Regarding the profile of
European spa clients, Germans are Europe’s most
enthusiastic spa users. More than 1.4 million Germans
attend spas regularly and 13 million are occasional
users (Cockerell, 1996).
Given this demand, the German government has
been promoting spa tourism since 1995. By 1998,
there were 330 spas in Germany. Spa promotion
carried out by the German government, which is a
result of the understanding of tourist consumer
behavior, has positioned Germany as the country
having the highest number of spas in Europe (See
Table 4).
Table 4 Number of Spas in Europe, 1998
Country
No. of Spas
Country
Australia
81
Greece
Belgium
3
Hungary
Czech. Rep.
34
Iceland
Finland
50
Italy
France
104
Luxembourg
Germany
330
Netherlands
Source: Adapted from Smith and Jenner (2000)
The above information confirms that understanding tourist consumer behavior helps tourismrelated stakeholders (in this case is the government)
to know what tourism products need to be promoted
in order to receive promising economic benefits.
Swarbrooke and Horner (1999) and Henry (1987)
conclude that understanding consumer behavior is a
way to guideline all marketing stakeholders regarding
what to promote and sell with less risk.
No. of Spas
45
32
1
300
1
4
Country
Poland
Russia
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
UK
No. of Spas
42
4519
15
128
21
12
parts still require human beings and the ‘human
touch’ to provide services. Kennedy et al (1994)
support Teboul (1988) that first-class travelers may
require human-provided service rather than machines
while mass tourists may prefer E-ticketing, as it is
timesaving. Therefore, to provide satisfied quality
services, the tourism product’s sellers need to understand the behavior of each tourist type.
CONCLUSION
HOW TOURIST CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IS USEFUL IN SELLING TOURISM PRODUCTS?
Kotler (1999) reveals that the buyer decision
process is composed of 5 stages, 1) Need recognition,
2) Information search (personal sources, commercial
sources, and public sources), 3) Evaluation of alternatives (brand image of self), 4) Purchase decision
(attitude of other, unexpected situation), 5) Post
purchase behavior (cognitive dissonance). Each
stage of each tourist typology will be different
(Krippendorf, 1987). For example, backpackers may
need a different level of recognition and different
method of information search compared to mass
tourists. Therefore all tourism-related stakeholders
should understand consumer behavior of each tourist
typology presented in Tables 1, 2 and 3 in order to
sell effectively.
It is not enough to only understand the buyer
decision process of each tourist typology; appropriate
approaches for service provision to each type of
persons traveling is also a must for all tourism
marketers. Although many writers (e.g. Poon, 1994;
Kandampully, 2001) say that in the globalization era,
technology can help improve service quality, using
that technology as a means for improving services
may not be suitable for some tourist typologies.
Teboul (1988) points out that technology may be
used in certain parts of service delivery but some
Tourists are defined as persons traveling away
from their normal places to other unusual places
(Leiper, 1997). They can be classified according to
their characteristics of travel or their so-called
consumer behavior. Tourist typology is therefore a
term used to identify how each group of traveling
persons behave in the tourist destination. From all
the information presented, it is possible to say that
the knowledge about tourists' behavior is not merely
of academic interest but it also proves valuable
information for practicing managers to be able to
plan effectively. Understanding consumer behavior
is very useful for developing tourism products. It is
also an integral source of information for promoting
tourism products and highlights how to sell tourism
products particularly in this globalized era, in which
the patterns of tourist traveling is highly influenced
by global factors such as the mass media (Pembroke,
1996). In short, the study of consumers’ behavior is
solely of not academic interest but it is also substantially beneficial when practicing managers have
the need to know and respond to tourists' needs and
wants correctly.
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Dr. Therdchai (Ted) Choibamroong received a
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Tourism Planning and
Management from Department of Tourism and Leisure
Management, Faculty of Business, Economics and
Law, University of Queensland, Australia by International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS),
granted by the Australian Government, Queensland
University International Postgraduate Research
Scholarship (UQIPRS) and Tourism and Leisure
Management Departmental Scholarship, Master of
Social Science (M. SOC.SC.), awarded with Distinction, in Tourism Policy and Management from
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS),
School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham,
United Kingdom and Bachelor of Arts (BA. in
English) from Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat
University. He is at present a Head of Sustainable
Tourism Development, Travel Industry Management
Division, Mahidol University International College,
Mahidol University and Area-Based Tourism
Research Manager for Area-Based Tourism Research
Centre for Sustainable Tourism, the Thailand Research
Fund, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Royal Thai
Government.