Lesson 6: Visitor Characteristics
Completion requirements
Unit 2
Why Tourists Travel
Lesson 6: Visitor Characteristics
"The traveller goes strenuously in search of people, adventure, or experience. The tourist expects interesting things to happen to him while he goes sight-seeing." ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
Although many tourism industries may focus on selling products, every one of these industries needs a strong focus on the customer experience. A strong understanding of place, combined with a strong understanding of the market, allows the tourism planner to create an experience opportunity that specifically targets the needs, desires, and expectations of particular market segments. Most importantly, get to know your client, or in this case, your visitor.
If you don't know who your customers are, how can you develop a product for them?
The tourist experience can be divided into four phases with various data collection opportunities throughout these phases:
Phase 1: Dreaming of Travel (including research)
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Phase 2: Choosing the Destination
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Phase 3: Taking the Trip
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Phase 4: Reviewing the Trip
Phase 1: Dreaming of Travel (including research)
Phase 2: Choosing the Destination
Phase 3: Taking the Trip
Phase 4: Reviewing the Trip
Click on the + icons at the right to expand the cell and learn more about each factor as it relates to the visitor characteristics.
An understanding of both where tourists come from and where they are travelling to is important data to gather. When you determine where your customers' origins are and their motivation, lead promotions and advertising campaigns
directly to the appropriate region aimed at matching their cultural norms. New product development can be designed specifically with regional profiling and the activities within a geographical region to highlight.
Demographics is the science of vital and social statistics such as age, gender, country of residence, length of stay, accommodation choice, activities, marital status, occupation, wage, mobility, and lifestyles of the tourists. Using the statistical number data of these demographics helps operators identify certain characteristics about the tourists and to tell a story or predict future trends within the populations. If tourism businesses know WHO travels to their destination or attraction, they can better predict WHO they should target marketing to for future travel.
For tourism destinations, hotel, and resort developers, it's difficult to market across entire generations of Millennials, Baby Boomers, Affluents, and International Travellers. A more effective method is to identify psychographic segments
- types of travellers who regardless of age or gender, share similar travel, interest, and spending patterns.
By specifically segmenting behavioral and attitudinal results, a clearer understanding of the travellers arises. Psychographic data to collect may include: the most important factors when deciding on a vacation destination, the activities enjoyed while on vacation, and general attitudes towards vacations.
Another categorization grouping can be found in the image below.
After summation of the data, traveller categorization can occur such as:
By specifically segmenting behavioral and attitudinal results, a clearer understanding of the travellers arises. Psychographic data to collect may include: the most important factors when deciding on a vacation destination, the activities enjoyed while on vacation, and general attitudes towards vacations.
Another categorization grouping can be found in the image below.
After summation of the data, traveller categorization can occur such as:
- Sophisticated Explorers
- All-in Enthusiasts
- Active Adventurers
- Occasional Convenience Traveller
- Family-Oriented Frugals
Tourism products and services need to match tourists' expectations in order to achieve their satisfaction. However, it is not enough to analyze their satisfaction, measured strictly on a very satisfied, satisfied, not satisfied scale, but
to analyze the factors and their interrelationships in the travel process to better understand consumer psychology. Determining the socioeconomic characteristics that improve the level of tourists' satisfaction will be useful in understanding
what type of tourist suits the destination.
The customer's characteristics of occupation is an important factor that influences the perception of places as it reflects back on the tourist's satisfaction. Two other important visitor characteristics to be considered are the tourist's wage and education level. All three characteristics are useful as they give a clearer understanding of the visual and textual content required from the advertising material resulting in the formulation of an effective message. In fact, research has shown a correlation between a tourist's income level and their satisfaction. Meaning, the tourists with the highest wage and education have the highest satisfaction with their stay. The question now is why?
The customer's characteristics of occupation is an important factor that influences the perception of places as it reflects back on the tourist's satisfaction. Two other important visitor characteristics to be considered are the tourist's wage and education level. All three characteristics are useful as they give a clearer understanding of the visual and textual content required from the advertising material resulting in the formulation of an effective message. In fact, research has shown a correlation between a tourist's income level and their satisfaction. Meaning, the tourists with the highest wage and education have the highest satisfaction with their stay. The question now is why?