Tourist Typologies and Tourist Motivations - Essay Example

TOURIST MOTIVATION AND TOURIST TYPOLOGIES Benefits And Limitations Of Tourist Typologies Tourist typologies and tourist motivations have been at the centre of research by many sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists for many years. This has been so because of the importance that the knowledge of these two subjects bears on the tourism industry. As will be seen in the discussion that follows, these subjects are closely related and will often be used together. This essay examines tourist topologies in detail and looks into information about tourist motivations. It also discusses the benefits and limitations of tourist typologies. Tourist motivation refers to the reasons that make a person want to travel in the first place and also the reasons that make that person choose to travel to a particular destination .Several factors inform the motivational profile of a traveler. These factors have been categorized into two groups: Push factors and pull factors .Push factors are intrinsic and unique to each tourist since they are determined by the personality and attitude of a person. They include: need for peace ,relaxation, prestige and need to get away from work. Pull factors are extrinsic and they include positive things and places that attract tourists. Examples of pull factors include: Mountains, sandy beaches, wildlife, local culture, and so on. (Plog 1977) Study of tourist motivations is crucial for two major reasons. Firstly, it helps us to understand tourist behavior. This in turn helps us forecast future product buying behavior of tourists. Secondly, it makes it easy for market segmentation of tourist markets. Market segmentation is the process of dividing a total market into market groups consisting of people or groups of people who have relatively similar characteristics in terms of attributes, behavior and product needs. Closely related to tourist motivation are tourist typologies. Tourist typologies refers to the profiles of groups of people with similar travel needs and requirements. Tourist typologies are closely related to tourist motivations because originally tourist motivations were used in constructing tourist typologies. This is true with the work of many early writers especially Cohen. Different authors have come up with different versions of constructing tourist typologies. Cohen(1972),categorized tourists into four types. The first category is what he called 'organized' mass tourists. This type of tourists buy their holiday package and after that they follow the decisions and programs of their tour operators. They interact less with the host community and confine themselves in an 'environmental bubble'. An environmental bubble is what surrounds the tourist 'from the security of which they observe and experience the strangeness of the host environment' making the tourist to taste the new environment without being overwhelmed by it.(Cohen 1972) The second type of tourist is the 'individual mass tourist'. This type, unlike the organized mass tourist ,have some control of their own programs although, like the organized mass tourist , they use the facilities provided by their tour operators. Again, many individual mass tourists visit 'sights' in much the same way as organized mass tourists.(Cohen 1972)The third type of tourists is the 'explorer' .This type of tourist is much more independent than the above two types. The explorer makes his own programs on where he wants to go and visit. He associates himself more with the local people and many a times speaks the language of the local people although he still puts up in comfortable hotels. He sticks to the things he does in his daily life. (Cohen 1972). The last type of tourists according to Cohen is the 'drifter'. The drifter will live with the community. He gets embedded in their culture and even earns his income from the community often by doing low skilled jobs. This helps him to easily mix with the low income groups of the society. The study of tourist typologies has many advantages. To start with, they help us in understanding tourist behaviour.This in turn can help us in strategic planning. Through knowledge on behavior of a tourist, one can come up with customized products and this can make him have an edge over his competitors.(Cohen 1972) Another benefit is that tourist typologies help communities to focus on particular tourist groups which can bring in more returns than the rest. This is because communities cannot possibly attract all tourist types. They also help us in understanding the impact the tourist is likely to have on the host community. Based on the impact then one can decide on what type of tourist to attract to that society. Tourist typologies also give us an insight into tourist motivations. (Cohen 1972) This is because the grouping makes it easier to learn the motivation in each group. Typologies will also help one to assess the costs necessary incoming up with a tourist product that serves a certain group and hence know how to optimally utilize the available resources.(Cohen 1972). Although typologies have got many benefits as outlined above, they are not without their limitations. To start with, they are static models that utilize limited information. The models do not consider the fact that tourists can move between categories.(Cohen 1972) The second limitation is that studies done on topologies concentrate more on characteristics but do not mention the importance of each typology (Plog 1977). The third limitation is that the names of the different tourists' types differ from one author to the other and hence this reflects the authors' opinion. The fourth limitation is that when collecting typological data, researchers use mostly questionnaires. This is problematic. (Cohen 1972 ).Again the tourists' motivations sometimes may prove to be too intricate that it cannot be just reduced into groups.(Plog s 1977) In conclusion this essay discussed tourist typologies and background information on motivations. It also examined the benefits and limitations of tourist typologies. Although many researchers have attempted to explain these two related subjects using various models, there is still no consensus on the best way to approach these subjects. Worse still, their models are marred with many limitations as discussed above. However despite the many limitations tourist typologies continue to play a pivotal role in the tourism sector and cannot be ignored. But more research needs to be done on tourist typologies in order to come up with a model that reflects more reality and which is acceptable. References Cohen's Typology (1972) Plog: Tourist types (1977) Read More