Willingness to Pay for Biodiversity Conservation

Nature-based tourism is the fastest growing tourism in many parts of the world. The attitude toward conservation of nature is measured by individuals' willingness to pay. This study has made an attempt to investigate the determinants of tourists' willingness to pay (WTP) for biodiversity conservation. The determinants include a combination of socio-economic and site-specific characteristics of tourists. The study was conducted in Sikkim, which is India's prime nature-based tourism destination. Results show WTP, and effects of education, and income of tourists. Among site-specific characteristics, length of stay and number of spots are the significant determinants of WTP. This empirical research is a valuable input to identify market segment among tourists, which might help to generate more revenues for biodiversity conservation in Sikkim.     

Toward a product-based typology for nature-based tourism: a conceptual framework

The traditional view of nature-based tourists as a relatively homogeneous group has been questioned, and several scholars have suggested various segmentation typologies. This paper discusses market and industry changes and notes key trends, as Fordist tourist products have been replaced by post-Fordist and neo-Fordist products, with both McDonaldization and McDisneyization developments. A range of visitor-based typologies are reviewed, and the conflict between capturing the diversity of today's nature-based tourists while offering management bodies simple tools to segment visitors, identify core groups and improve their marketing is noted. In an attempt to overcome this conflict, the paper presents a conceptual framework which focuses on nature-based tourism products instead of tourist types, therefore incorporating aspects of both the demand and supply sides of the nature-based tourism industry market. A two-dimensional matrix is suggested, linking four basic travel motivations (nature conservation, nature experience, sports/adventure and hedonistic) to four different types of tourist products (independent, à la carte, customized and standardized), giving a total typology of 16 different types. The matrix should help protected area managers to better understand tourist needs, suggest management measures and help to create more sustainable forms of tourism. Empirical testing is suggested as a next step.     

A typology of memorable experience at Nelson Mandela heritage sites

This study examines cultural heritage tourism by identifying and segmenting heritage site visitors according to the aspects they define as necessary for a memorable heritage site experience. The research focusses on visitors to Nelson Mandela Heritage Sites and emphasises that the links between the attributes of a site and the visitors themselves are essential to understanding tourists’ willingness to pay to visit the mentioned sites. A typology of visitors that the authors labelled ‘auxiliary experience seekers, convenience experience seekers and comprehensive experience seekers’ (ACC) was used. The results revealed comprehensive experience seekers as the most critical market segment regarding the much significantly higher amount they are willing to pay when visiting Nelson Mandela Heritage Sites. This leads to a better understanding of aspects contributing towards a memorable heritage site experience as well as to visitors’ willingness to pay for such experiences. This study also provides further insight into cultural heritage tourism in general. Moreover, such segmentation was found as a useful research tool for producing a distinct visitor profile as well as how a memorable experiencing can be generated by suggesting diversified pricing at such sites.     

Determining guests’ willingness to pay for hotel room attributes with a discrete choice model

Hotel managers need to understand the marginal utility customers associate with a specific attribute of a hotel in order to effectively set up rate fences and to price their rooms accordingly. This study adopted a stated choice experiment and discrete choice modeling method to obtain hotel guests’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a specific set of room attributes within a single hotel property. The attributes include room views, hotel floor, club access, free mini-bar items, smartphone service, and cancellation policy. The study discovered that leisure travelers versus business travelers, and first-time visitors versus repeat visitors, perceive different WTP values for various attributes. These findings provide valuable information for hotel managers to segment their market and conduct revenue management practices in order to maximize revenue and profit. The results also demonstrate the value of discrete choice modeling in obtaining WTP for hotel room attributes.     

The hybrid tourist

Inspired by the recent emergence of the hybrid consumer in the marketing literature, the present article defines hybrid tourists and assesses empirical evidence of their existence. Results indicate that hybrid tourists—tourists whose segment membership for the next trip cannot be predicted from their segment membership of their last trip—are the norm, rather than the exception. Only one quarter of tourists remain in the same motivation segment across more than one trip. Results are similar for expenditure segments. Tourist hybridity exists both with respect to travel motivations and expenditure. Personal characteristics predict hybridity. New approaches of market segmentation are needed to cater for the hybrid tourist.     

Segmentation by visitor motivation in three Kenyan national reserves

This study addresses the needs of three national reserves in north central Kenya for developing a tourism strategy aimed at enhancing tourist opportunities at the reserves. In order to adequately address visitor needs, the reserve managers must first understand the motivations for different types of visitors. A factor-cluster approach was employed to identify visitor segment profiles based on their motivations for visiting the reserves. A principal components analysis of motivations revealed eight motivation factors, and three distinct visitor segments were identified using an ipsative clustering method. These segments included Escapists, Learners and Spiritualists. Understanding the differences in these visitor segments will help managers of the reserves better provide alternative activities and services to tourists. Management recommendations include providing scenic and expansive landscape viewing opportunities and developing a more competent and knowledgeable ranger corps capable of visitor education and outreach initiatives.     

Testing Segment Stability: Insights from a Rural Tourism Study

The majority of earlier segmentation studies have focused on finding segmentation solutions rather than on applying the results to practice, and testing the viability of the results. In this study a unique opportunity is used to test how the segmentation solutions of an earlier rural tourism segmentation study conducted in 2009 represent rural tourist segments in 2011, and how well rural tourists can relate to the segments found in the earlier study by using multiple choice questions. Also, different segmentation methods are compared regarding their accuracy to identify the segments. These results show that the four segments identified in the earlier study continue to exist two years later as respondents are able to relate to the segments quite well. However, segment sizes are crucially different and there is some overlap between segments. Travel motivations measured using binary scale produce more accurate segments than motivations measured using a Likert-type scale.     

Activity Segmentation of the International Heritage Tourism Market to Taiwan

The heritage tourism market has developed from being regarded as a small niche segment to a mainstream market of considerable size. In Taiwan, diversified heritage resources hold considerable appeal to the international tourism market. Little research has been completed on international heritage tourists to Taiwan, so this study utilized Taiwan as a case study and examined international tourists to the destination. It first employed cluster analysis based on activity participation to segment the market and test for the existence of “heritage tourists”. Three groups of international tourists to Taiwan were identified and they were labelled as “heritage”, “shopping” and “non-specialists”. The heritage group had a high participation rate in visiting heritage relics (90.6%). The study also profiled tourists according to the reasons they travelled to Taiwan and socio-demographic variables. The heritage tourists and other activity participation groups were compared to reveal the major motivational and socio-demographic differences involved. The findings showed that “international heritage tourists to Taiwan” were a group of visitors with relatively younger ages, middle levels of income and higher educational levels. The study defined heritage tourists who indicated visiting heritage sites as part of their reason for visiting Taiwan as “motivated heritage visitors”. Other heritage tourists who participated in heritage activities, but did not list heritage tourism as a reason for visiting Taiwan, were defined as “heritage site visitors”. Finally, the study profiled the two groups of heritage tourists and compared them, with significant differences being found in ages and nationalities.     

Profiling the segments of visitors to Portuguese protected areas

This study identifies the diversity of domestic visitors to Portuguese protected areas (PPA) based on benefit segmentation. The segments of PPA visitors are also compared with other nature-based tourist segments using some empirical benefit segmentation literature. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire and multivariate statistics techniques (principal components, hierarchical and K-means cluster analyses) were applied. Five distinct segments of visitors were identified based on the motivation for their visit and further characterized by the perceived importance of activities, facilities and services, frequency of visit and socio-demographics. Three segments are nature-focused and two are focused on activities or events. Only one segment shows specific interests and motivations associated with ecotourism and similar characteristics to international ecotourists; moreover, the reasons for the visit in one segment are unrelated to any of the motivations of nature-based tourism. Some implications for management are also described.     

Lifestyle Segmentation of Spa Users: A Study of Inbound Travelers to Hong Kong

Based on the increasing popularity of the wellness/spa trend and the growing numbers of inbound tourists to Hong Kong, it is crucial for spa industry experts to understand the ever-changing desires of consumers. The study aims to identify the lifestyle dimensions of international spa visitors to Hong Kong and to profile each segment based on their sociodemographic and travel characteristics. The study adopts a quantitative approach to segmenting international spa visitors in Hong Kong by lifestyle. The results of the lifestyle segmentation revealed five clusters of spa visitors. The segments are “health conscious and intellectual”, “average”, “family focused”, “pleasure oriented”, and “carefree”. It is found that the majority of travelers who visit spas in Hong Kong are health conscious and intellectual. In general, visitors prefer day spas, to visit with their partner or friends, and to enjoy body massage treatments.     

Segmenting East Asian Tourists to Greece by Travel Motivation

This study compares the push and pull motivations of East Asian (Japanese, Chinese and Korean) tourists who visit Greece and also proposes market segmentation based on travel motivations that transcend the national boundaries of those countries. Four main push factors were identified: “Knowledge”, “Ego-enhancement”, “Escape & Relaxation” and “Novelty”. Similarly, four pull factors were also identified: “Leisure, shopping and safety”, “Variety and cost”, “Culture & heritage” and “Travel arrangements and facilities”. Cross-cultural differences were found regarding the importance of travel motivations. Chinese tourists scored higher than other nationalities for almost all motivation categories. Although the cross-cultural differences are important, this study proposes another way to tackle the market segmentation by conducting an international segmentation based on inherent similarities across different nationalities of travelers. Three segments emerged from that analysis with the “Novelty Seekers” to be the largest followed by the “Want-it-All” and the “Lowly Motivated”.     

Targeting Rural Tourists in the Internet: Comparing Travel Motivation and Activity-Based Segments

This study aims to compare activity-based segmentation and travel motivation segmentation from the perspective of information search behavior and online use behavior by comparing segment heterogeneity. The data were collected from users of three Finnish rural tourism websites with 1754 completed and usable questionnaires to create segmentation solutions based on travel activities and motivations using hierarchical cluster analysis and then comparing the results. The results indicate that travel activities are more useful than travel motivations in finding heterogeneous segmentation solutions, making the travel activity segments more heterogeneous than travel motivation segments as regards their information search behavior and Internet use. The results suggest that in this era of Internet marketing, travel activities are a better segmentation base than travel motivations in order to target different market segments as activities form more heterogeneous segmentation solutions.     

Insights into Sustainable Tourists in Austria: A Data-based A Priori Segmentation Approach

An excellent market-driven way to successfully implement sustainable tourism in a destination is to find a segment of tourists or potential tourists interested in the unique natural beauty of the destination, willing to preserve it, and who are also highly attractive in terms of high expenditures, long stays, high return rate, high recommendation rate etc. The first step in seeking these visitors is through investigation of sustainable market segments. So far, only a few studies have systematically searched for 'eco-segments'or sustainable tourist groups and described them. This paper reviews the usefulness of such approaches, examines past studies investigating potential target segments and describes the group of summer tourists in Austria who care about maintaining the natural environment. The results suggest that this group of visitors has some highly attractive characteristics and is very large, thus offering a sound basis for additional sustainable niche segment creation.     

Who visits the Kruger National Park,and why? identifying target markets

This study identified viable target markets at South Africa’s most renowned nature reserve, the Kruger National Park, using market segmentation based on demographic characteristics. International, domestic, and local nature tourists were surveyed and categorized into three distinct clusters. The results show that block clustering based on visitors’ demographic characteristics is a useful research tool for producing a clear visitor profile and showed that during the process of market segmentation it is necessary to establish the relationship between a particular segmentation base and visitors' behavior and preferences. This is useful information for managing this Park, and other similar parks, more sustainably.     

Toward a typology of medical tourists: A case study of Thailand

This paper examines the motivations of medical tourists who sought treatment in Thailand. Previous research has tended to treat the medical tourist market as undifferentiated, with the decision to seek treatment made prior to departure. These assumptions may be incorrect, and a significant finding of this study was that medical tourists can be categorized into four different groups, each of which displays significant differences in the types of treatment sought, the motivations for visiting Thailand, the decision making process, and their travel characteristics. One contribution of this study is its indication that if destination managers understand the nature and characteristics of each type of medical tourist, they will be able develop and promote more appropriate and satisfactory medical tourism products and services for their visitors.     

Using ski destination choice criteria to segment Finnish ski resort customers

The purpose of the paper is to segment Finnish ski resort visitors according to ski destination choice attributes using data-driven segmentation. In addition, segments are compared in order to ascertain possible differences in personal (gender and age) and situation-specific (type of visitor and traveling companion) characteristics between customer segments. The data were collected from visitors to five different ski resorts in Lapland Finland during the years 2006 and 2007 by self-administered questionnaire. Altogether 1827 responses were collected of which 1529 were acceptable for use in this study. Six different customer segments were identified using the factor-cluster method: passive tourists, cross-country skiers, want-it-all, all-but-downhill skiing, sports seekers, and relaxation seekers. At the end of the paper conclusions are drawn and managerial implications discussed.     

Why do They Come Back? The Effects of Winery Tourists’ Motivations and Satisfaction on the Number of Visits and Revisit Intentions

ABSTRACT

Few studies have examined the influence of winery tourists’ motivations and satisfaction on number of visits and revisit intentions. This study examined these relationships through 1602 online survey responses from former winery visitors. The data were analyzed through a series of multiple regression analyses. Findings show that among tourists’ motivations, the reputation, reviews, and perceived quality of the winery and its wines significantly affect the number of visits and revisit intentions, while media exposure affects revisit intentions. Further, visitors’ satisfaction with the winery significantly impacts revisit intentions. While visitors’ geographic proximity to the winery increased the number of visits, as expected, distance from the winery is shown to increase revisit intentions. Finally, the number of previous visits had a significant positive effect on revisit intentions.     

Mainland Chinese Tourists to Hawaii: Their Characteristics and Preferences

Tourism is the most economically important industry to the United States' only island state, Hawaii. With Hawaii's highest spending and largest international tourist segment, Japanese, decreasing significantly (a loss from over 2,000,000 in 1997 to just over 1,000,000 Japanese visitors in 2009), Hawaii needs to prepare to replace the significant decrease of Japanese visitors with a new visitor market. The logical new international visitor target market would be tourists from the fastest growing economy in the world, that being China. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences in attitudinal and behavioral characteristics, and preferences of Chinese tourists in Hawaii according to key sociodemographic variables. The results of this study conclude that sociodemographic variables show significant differences in attitudinal and behavioral characteristics. For example, when comparing the number of times a respondent had visited Hawaii, first-time visitors showed the highest level of preference for a deluxe hotel while second-time visitors showed the highest level of preference for a budget hotel. Those who had visited Hawaii three or more times indicated the highest preference for a first class hotel and also to be more interested in high-end shopping. First-time visitors showed the highest percentage in the lowest category of estimated cost of gifts (US$0–US$300). This indicates that Hawaii tour operators should focus on introducing more discounted shopping to first-time visitors.

The results of this study are likely to be beneficial for understanding Chinese tourists and establishing marketing policies to enhance their satisfaction and raise their intention to revisit Hawaii. The findings of this study could be helpful for all stakeholders including local tour operators, the hotels, and Hawaii's tourism officials.     

Segmenting Wine Tourists on the Basis of Involvement with Wine

As involvement with wine may vary significantly among wine consumers and wine tourists, segmentation based on product involvement seems to be a reasonable choice. A multinational sample of 517 winery visitors is divided into three groups of low, medium, and high involvement levels; similarities and differences are examined. Results confirm that it is meaningful to segment winery visitors on the basis of their involvement with wine, as important differences can be identified in terms of visitation motives and patterns, demographic characteristics, relationship with wine, pre-visit attitudes towards the winery, evaluation of the winery experience, post-visit attitudes, and future behavioral intentions. Management and marketing implications are discussed.