The Impact of Consumer Behaviour when Selecting a Holiday Destination - Coursework Example

Name: Course: Lecturer: Date: The impact of consumer behavior when selecting a holiday destination Table of Contents 2.0 Introduction 3 3.0 Consumer Behavior Analysis 4 3.1 Typologies of tourists 4 3.2 The Buying Process 5 Consumer behaviors will have various impacts when selecting a holiday destination. 5 4.0 Impacts of Consumer Behaviors on Holiday Destination Selection 6 Different consumer behaviors spell different consumption of available products and service and at different destinations. 6 4.1 Cultural artifacts and holiday destination 6 This outlines mankind`s norms, beliefs, ways of life and rituals. These values are exceptional in every culture and impacts individual life, communication and thought. Certain things are thought and perceived differently. Human decision as well as how to act in regard to certain issues are deeply rooted in cultural values. This means perception of surrounding culture on holidays, destination and choices mostly affects the individual decision on the same (Cornell, p.1). 6 Moreover, social class within the culture spells specific holiday destination for consumers. Individuals position in the society determined level of income, education, occupation, wealth, family prestige, value of home and neighborhood. People in different social classes buy different services and products for different reasons. As such, people ranked high in the society tend to go for prestige and premium holidays whether for satisfaction, status maintenance or even pride (Math, p.5). 7 4.2 Social environment and holiday destination 7 4.3 Demographics, lifestyles and Holiday Destination 8 5.0 Conclusion 9 2.0 Introduction The key essential decisions made by holiday goers includes; whether to travel, to where and what to do, the right time to travel, the length of stay as well as intended amount to spend. Travellers’ perception of a destination helps in acting on these questions (Kulshreshtha, p.4). Marketers in the industry aims at persuading travelers go to specific destinations. A significant part of the persuasion outlines the experience visitor will enjoy at the destination. This renders a challenge to consumers who get trapped between choice of destination and the choice of vacation experience. Thus, in an attempt to handle the two issues, tourists may first decide a particular destination and then work out what experience they create for themselves there. Secondly, vacation experience may be the tourist first decision which then affects what destination to go for. In this case, understanding consumers’ needs, preferences, and behavior helps destinations offer suitable supply mechanism and reimbursements appropriate for different market segments (Hallab, P.1). This is because what is new today could be archaic or obsolete in a few months with ever changing needs, and potential never thought of years back, is fully integrated now (Stenseng, p.1). In this regard; touristic destinations must incorporate constant change to stay on the top of the game. This paper explores consumer behaviors and their impact in determining destination choices. 3.0 Consumer Behavior Analysis Consumer behaviors refer to all actions involving, acquiring, using and disposing products or services and the processes incurred in decision-making prior and subsequent to these activities. Consumer behavior can also be define as the study of why humans purchase the products or services they do and as wells as their ways of making decisions in regard to the whole process on buying and consumption (Cheng, p.2). The fundamental pillar of every marketing theory is the art of consumer satisfaction. Therefore, to effectively do so marketers ought to thoroughly understand the main facet of consume behavior analysis which consists of consumer motivations, consumer typologies, and the consumer purchasing process. Through this understanding, destinations are committing resources for more proper studies on the consumers’ behaviors, needs and preferences (Lin et al,p. 4796). 3.1 Typologies of tourists A research of the travel and hospitality industry by Plog in 1974 argued that, travellers are better classified in two groups. Allocentric travellers also known as venturers are said to be in demand of exotic destinations and prefer unpacked or unstructured vacations. These are as well overly engaged with host cultures. On the other hand, psychoecentrics travellers go for familiar destinations prefer packaged tours and mainly go for touristic areas. These are also known as depedables as they entirely rely on tailor-made vacations (Coccossis, p.10). Plog also found out than many other people do not fall any of these two categories but are somewhere in the middle hence their name mid-centric. However, in recent times, scholars have termed Plog`s theory difficult to relate as holiday goers have different motivations and on different occasions. This means people takes short winter vacation as an allocentric and then indulge in long haul summer vacation as psychoecentrics travellers. For that reason, scholars have indulged in to advance research in the industry, leading to classification of travellers in further four categories; more ordered mass tourists. These depends mainly on ‘environmental bubble’, goes for all-inclusive and structured vacations; (2) the personal tourist, who is does the holidaying by themselves; (3) the explorer, attracted to new areas but occasionally goes for comfortable holidays; and (4) the drifter, who shuns any form of ‘tourist set up’ (Coccossis, p.6). 3.2 The Buying Process Consumer behaviors will have various impacts when selecting a holiday destination. Depending on nature of purchase, consumers exhibit various buying situations and commitments. These include; extended problem solving whereby consumers show deep level of commitment to look for comprehensive information as well as comparing alternatives. Secondly, others are in limited problem solving category: In this situation, consumers contain some experience at hand. Search is therefore far more limited. Thirdly, the habitual problem solving category sees consumers do repeat purchase; of a tried and tested day excursion, which necessitates modest or no assessments. The purchase is made primarily on the basis of a previous satisfactory experience and a good understanding of the destination or brand name of the tourism or hospitality offering (Cheng, p.137). The buying process is influenced by awareness, information search, altitude development, evaluations, purchase and post purchase behavior. The buying process is as well influenced by role adoption (Lin et al, p.4798). The five main roles include; Initiator: this individual begins the buying process and collects information. Influencer: individuals who expresses the right choices and preferences available and from information gathered. Decider: People with financial control and those with authority in regard to intended holiday purchase. Buyer: The person who makes the actual buying by contacting tour operators and obtains the holiday details. User: these are individuals taking the trip. 4.0 Impacts of Consumer Behaviors on Holiday Destination Selection Different consumer behaviors spell different consumption of available products and service and at different destinations. 4.1 Cultural artifacts and holiday destination This outlines mankind`s norms, beliefs, ways of life and rituals. These values are exceptional in every culture and impacts individual life, communication and thought. Certain things are thought and perceived differently. Human decision as well as how to act in regard to certain issues are deeply rooted in cultural values. This means perception of surrounding culture on holidays, destination and choices mostly affects the individual decision on the same (Cornell, p.1). Moreover, social class within the culture spells specific holiday destination for consumers. Individuals position in the society determined level of income, education, occupation, wealth, family prestige, value of home and neighborhood. People in different social classes buy different services and products for different reasons. As such, people ranked high in the society tend to go for prestige and premium holidays whether for satisfaction, status maintenance or even pride (Math, p.5). 4.2 Social environment and holiday destination These include reference groups and family life cycles. Reference groups include family members, college mates, and colleagues at work among other groups. These directly or indirectly impact travellers’ altitude and behaviors towards a destination. For instance, involving with experienced travellers who have been to different areas enhances one perception of certain destinations. Other references groups are obtained by availability of internet and social media. These provide consumers with access to reviews and opinions in regard to specific travel spots worldwide. Sharing expectations with others shapes our need for a destination. From the marketing specification, individuals get to know if the destination or spot is worth their time and money. As such, marketing can make or break a destination. In this case, people are likely to choose or not to choose a destination depending on the information acquired from the reference group (Cheng, p.1). Additionally, family life cycle influences individuals’ selection of holiday destination. Stages passed by families affect individuals’ perceptions, and end up determining the choice in regard to holiday destination in later generation. The type of family one is brought up in adds to their behavior of selecting holiday destinations. This means single people are likely to choose different destinations from couples (Alamdari & Burell, p.7). 4.3 Demographics, lifestyles and Holiday Destination Demographics include variables like age, gender, income, occupation and other things. For senior market and baby boomers is said to target value more than pricing in holiday unlike the younger people who are said to mainly look at the price tag first. Elderly also gets attracted to more quite and peace places than younger people (Patterson, p.4). Additionally, gender segmentation in the industry says female travellers are more demanding and discerning than male counterparts. Female concern main concerns are safety, security, convenience and comfort (Alamdari & Burell, p.7). This will definitely affect the choice of holiday destination. Still, incomes spell personal budgets. The capability of tourist to afford intended holidays ensures they travel more often. On the other hand, the higher the cost of the intended holiday causes fewer visits to the destination. Cost of different products and services such as air tickets can influence consumers’ travel choices to destination. Moreover, peoples` lifestyles influence holiday selections in the industry. Time, energy and money receive different allocation from different people. This is caused by individuals’ activities, interests and opinions. According to scholars, there are eight main psychographic groups: innovators, thinkers, achievers, experiencers, believers, strivers, makers, and survivors. As such, they have different motivations and purchases. To many, travel is a perceived a luxury. In this regard, travel may come last in their budgets. This means a few coins will be set apart for holidays in cases of low earners. On the other hand, holiday is a necessity to some individual hence they always alloacte time, money for specific holiday destinations (Math, p.1). 5.0 Conclusion In general, consumer behavior plays a major role when selecting a holiday destination. For that reason, destinations which design with consumer needs, preferences and behaviors in mind, ensures their services and product safety and sustainability. These destinations always reap the competitive advantage. Above and beyond, hospitality and tourism industry is an evolving industry. And as the world-economy is changing and more and more individuals can travel, it necessitates future leisure professionals to be more skilled to provide up to date services for the growing clientele. Destinations that fail to answer the changing needs are likely not going to survive. To be relevant in future, current trends must be well analyzed to be able to understand future behavior of consumers and work towards that. 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