HTMG 3050

Travel and Tourism Management

Lecture 2 (continued): Tourist Motivations

 Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches
to Tourist Motivations
Motivation is the desire to expand effort to fulfill a need. Tourist
motivation acts as a trigger which stimulates the chain of events in
the tourism consumption process.

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Push and Pull Factors
• Dann’s Perspectives on Tourism Motivation
• Tourist types (Cohen, 1972; Plog, 1974)
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s theory assumes that a person

attempts to satisfy the more basicneeds
before directing behaviour toward
satisfying upper-level needs.

Lower-order needs must be

satisfied before a higher-order
need begins to control a
person’s behaviour.

A satisfied need ceases

to motivate.
HK tour group unscathed in Peru resort armed robbery
The Travel Industry Council says about 40 Hong Kong tourists caught up in a
violent armed robbery at a luxury hotel in Peru are safe following the ordeal,
which is believed to have left at least one person dead, RTHK reports.

A Peruvian news website said a gang of Venezuelans and Colombians stormed the
Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica hotel on Tuesday night.

Reports said a local tourist guide was killed during the robbery.

The TIC said the Hong Kong travelers at the hotel were on package tours organized
by two travel agencies, Jetour and Premium Holidays.

It said all of the tourists were safe, although two lost their passports and money
during the robbery. The tours were continuing despite the incident.

The hotel is in Peru's Madre de Dios region, which borders Brazil and Bolivia, and
is said to very popular with international tourists.

Peru's El Comercio newspaper quoted the manager of the hotel as saying that –
contrary to some reports – no tourists were held hostage during the robbery and
the gang didn't venture far into the hotel, only stealing items from a shop.
 The Criticism of the Theory

• Tourists are often motivated by more than one factor.

• The needs may not follow a definite hierarchical order. For example,
even if safety need is not satisfied, the social need may emerge.

• The level of motivation may be permanently lower for some people.

For example, a person suffering from chronic unemployment may
remain satisfied for the rest of his life if only he gets enough food.
 Push and Pull Factors (Dann, 1977)

Push factors propel a desire to travel

Pull factors influence which destinationis selected.
• Escape • Adventure
• Self-discovery • Excitement • Scenic beauty • Sporting events
• Rest, relaxation • Family togetherness • Historical areas • Beaches
• Prestige • Health & fitness • Cultural attractions • Parks
• Challenge • Recreation facilities • Shopping
 Dann’s (1981) Perspective
Travel as a response to Tourist motivation may result from a desire for
what is lacking yet something new or different and cannot be provided in
desired the individual’s home environment (e.g., Hokkaido).

Destination pull in The distinction between the needs, wants and

response to desires (push factors) of the individual and how
motivational push these are shaped by perceptions of the destination
(pull factors)
Tourists may be motivated to travel to engage in forms
of behavior or activities that are not culturally
Motivation asfantasy acceptable in their home environment. One context of
this is travel to enable deviant behavior such as
gambling, drugs or prostitution where, because such
activities may be illegal in the home country but not in
others, this creates the desire to travel.
 Some are motivated to travel or ‘caused’ to travel by
Motivation as the nature or purpose of the trip. Visiting friends and
classified purpose relatives is one example, the opportunity to
undertake specific leisure activities another.

Motivational Different types of tourist may influence the

typologies motivation to travel.

Tourism often involves travel to places not visited

Motivation and previously. As such, some are motivated to travel by
tourist experiences what they expect to experience in contrast to their
home area and other holiday experiences.

Motivation as The ways in which tourists define their situations and

auto-definition and respond to them may provide a better understanding
of tourist motivation. Such an approach is seen in
meaning contrast to simply observing behavior as a means to
explain tourist motivation.
 Tourist Types (Cohen, 1972) problem: one tourist may fall into
one or more categories

Inthe 1970s, several studies attempted to classify tourists

according to observable behavior.

The organized mass tourist takes a highly organized packageholiday

1 and has minimal contact with the host community, holidaying within an
‘environmental bubble’.
The independent mass tourist uses similar facilities to the organized
2 mass tourist but also wants to break away from the norm and to visit
other sights not covered on organized tours in the destination.

The explorer arranges their travel independently and wishes to

3
experience the social and cultural lifestyle of the destination.

The drifter does not seek any contact with other tourists or the
4
organized tourism industry, preferring to live with the host community.

Any problems?
 Tourist Types (Plog, 1974)
Plog (1974) classified tourists into twomajor classifications
based on their personality and curiosity to visit places:
 The Travel Career Ladder
• Researchers recognize that tourist motivation changes over time and tourists
may have several ‘motives’ to travel.
• Pearce (1993) suggested that individuals exhibit a ‘career’ in terms of tourism
behavior.
• Pearce’s model builds on the pyramidal system conceptualized by Maslow, with
five motivational levels and suggests that tourist motivation is an ever-changing
process and individuals move up the ‘ladder’, which is modified to Travel Career
Patterns.
 Travel Career Pattern Concept as Three
Layers of Travel Motivation
The core motives which are the most important ones, such as
1. the pursuit of novelty, escape, relaxation and the desire to
enhance relationships.
A series of moderately important motivators related to self-
actualization (i.e. focused on the inner self) that surround this
2. core set of motivations and a number of externally focused
motives such as interaction with the host society and
environment.
An outer layer comprising the most commonly cited and less
stable motives which are of less importance. For example,
3. nostalgia and the pursuit of isolation fall into this category.

The tourist has to be understood like an onion: they comprise a number of layers that need to be
peeled away to uncover the extrinsic and intrinsic motivational forces.
 Factors Influencing Tourist Motivation
Age:
• many tour operators segment their holiday products by age (e.g., Club 18-30
and Saga (over 50s) .
• Those aged 16-24 and over 65 are more likely to not have a holiday than
other age groups.
• overseas holidays are more likely to be taken by those aged 35-54.
• The retired population generates largest domestic holiday proportion.
 Factors Influencing Tourist Motivation
• Family Lifestyle: different stages of life demand different interests and
activities
The framework set out by Rapoport and Rapoport (1975) defined four stages:
a) Adolescence (15-19yrs)
b) Young adult (to late 20s)
c) Family establishment (25-55yrs)
d) Later years (55+).

• Presence of children has particular impact on tourism participation and

patterns. Couples without children tend to take short breaks throughout
year and some very long trips. Grandparents play significant role in taking
younger children on trips, particular day trips and short visits.
 Factors Influencing Tourist Motivation
• Gender: contemporary tourism seen rise in lone female traveler; women's
travel is often associated with mystical destinations, voluntary environmental
work, backpacker routes or spa/pamper breaks. Lone men are seen as seeking
adventure, expedition or sex tourism, while lone women are considered brave
and vulnerable. Women are more likely to take a passive role in strange
environments than men and that men pursue a wider range of leisure
opportunities in unfamiliar environments.
 Factors Influencing Tourist Motivation
Disability: Mobility-challenged consumers tend to form the
focus of much of the development work in the tourism sector,
although they form only about 5 per cent of the total disabled
population.
• Visual impairments
• Hearing impairments
• Mental impairments

In many countries, there are strict legal requirements placed on

businesses to provide accessibility and the tourism industry is
not exempt.
 Factors Influencing Tourist Motivation
Increasingly, the tourism industry is able to offer improved products
and services to the disabled market.
• Airlines are particularly good at accommodating wheelchair
access.
• A growing number of specialist organizations and tour
operators now offer both domestic and overseas tourism
experiences.
 Nationality and National Identity
• Leisure participation rates vary with ethnicity and nationality. Pizam and
Sussman (1995) found five behavioural characteristics:

Social interaction Japanese tend to stay within their owngroup.

Commercial transaction Americans buy the most

Preference for activities Italians and French are the most adventurous.

Bargaining and tripplanning Japanese plan the most, Italians the least.
French, Italian and Americans are interested in
Knowledge of destination
authentic experience.

• For overseas travel, language barriers may act as a disincentive to travel,

although in many cases legal requirements for visas prove to be most
problematic.
 Tourism and Work
• Leisure and work both compete for an individual's time.
• The nature of work is also an important influence on tourism. Where an
individual’s work is boring, arduous or monotonous,
tourism may well represent an escape.

Four hypotheses in terms of a work/leisure relationship:

The Trade-off Work and leisure are competitors for time and an individual
Hypothesis chooses between them.
The Compensation Leisure and holidays compensate for the boredom and
Hypothesis: troubles associated with work and everyday life.
TheSpin-off The nature of an individual’s work produces a similar pattern
Hypothesis: of leisure activities.
TheNeutralist There is no discernible relationship between leisure and
Hypothesis: work.
 Tourist Motivation and Segmentation
▪ Segmentation: identifying types of customers and classifying them into groups or
market segments
▪ Through segmentation, marketers can establish common reasons behind the purchase
of tourism products within a market segment
▪ Segmentation techniques:
▪ Segmentation by purpose of travel e.g. leisure, business, visiting friends and
relatives (VFR), and subdivisions like sightseeing, sun seeking, wanderlust.
▪ Psychographic segmentation based on lifestyle factors, interests or attitudes i.e.
Adventure tourism aims to target thrill seekers by identifying traits.
▪ Behaviourist segmentation grouping consumers according to relationship with a
product i.e. benefits sought (value for money), loyalty (frequent flyer schemes),
purchase regularity and attitude/awareness to product.
HTMG 3050
Travel and Tourism Management

Lecture 3: Tour Operating and Travel Retailing

 Principals

Tour Operators vs Travel Agents

▪ A tour operator organizes, packages together different elements of the
tourism experience and offer them for sale to the public through different
distribution channels.
▪ The package offered by tour operators are also known as inclusive tours
▪ Distribution channels:
Expedia: tour operator (because
▪ Direct or indirect the service it offers fits into the definition,
▪ Offline or online also OTA
▪ Online operators vs Integrated operators
▪ Tour operators bulk purchase tourism elements to be sold to clients at the
booking stage or in the destination, which allows them to fix their costs in
advance and operators to achieve economies of scale by gaining heavily
discounted rates on their purchases.
Thomas Cook: both online and offline--> integrated operator
less financial risks compared to TO,
do not bulk purchase servcies, just act

and customers
Tour Operators vs Travel Agents
as brokerage between service providers
a brokerage role

• Travel agents remain a key intermediary in the distribution chain. Their primary
role was in acting as agents selling travel tickets for transport companies,
accommodation providers and other tourist services as well as packed tours
offered by tour operators. make $ by charging commission with each purchase
• Travel agents as businesses carry no stock and act on behalf of the tour
operators, so they have little financial risk and do not purchase products
themselves. They receive a commission for each sale and, as agents, do not
become part of the contract of sale, which is between the tour operator and the
customer.
• However, in the 1980s and 1990s, many agencies entered into tour operating.
On the other hand, many travel agencies are owned and operated by tour
operators.
 How tour operators link the elements of a holiday together to
produce, assemble and distribute the package to the consumer

why need TAs when can approach

demand side directly?
supply side now tend to by-pass TAs

Information Classification: General

 ICT Capabilities and Their Role in Travel Retailing
• Information Communication Technology (ICT) aids the identification, selection,
booking and payment as well as the after-sale evaluation of tourism goods.
• Tourists need to use ICT to support their trip planning processes, for example for
searching and booking tourism services, receiving and paying for travel, and
sharing tourism experiences and reviews.

Information Classification: General

 Social Media, Its Functionality and Impact on
Tourism
• Since the early 1990s, the Internet has revolutionized tourism, providing
low-cost efficient and effective web tools to any size of tourism
organization to globally promote and sell its services.

Information Classification: General

 Web 1.0 Web 2.0
• World Wide Web websites that
• The first stage of the World Wide
emphasize user-generated
Web’s evolution.
content, usability (ease of use,
• Content creators were few in Web
even by non-experts), and
1.0 with the vast majority of users
interoperability (this means that
simply acting as consumers of
a website can work well with
content.
other products, systems, and
• e.g. personal website
devices) for end users.

Publishingand Participation and

E-commerce Social Commerce
Static pre-made packages Dynamic packaging (pick-and-mix technology)
This means that tourism operators need to redefine
their business models and mode of operation to
exploit the business opportunities provided by ICTs.
 Social Media, Its Functionality and Impact on
Tourism
• During the last decades, Web 2.0 has developed as a platform for information
sharing, inter-operability, user- centered design and collaboration.
• A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate in a social media dialogue as
(co-)creators (prosumers) of UGC in a virtual community or social network.
producers + consumer

Prosumers: a consumer who becomes involved with

designing or customizing products for their own needs.

Information Classification: General

 • Social media is a group of online media which share the following characteristics:
participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness.
social review

social knowledge social sharing

social networking

Web 2.0 Technology and Tourism

Information Classification: General
 Social Web-mapping
• Recently, many social media tools have been enriched with web-mapping
applications (e.g. GeoBlog, wikimapping and geoRSS) which enable users to store,
search, visualize and share multimedia content on top of a map. Social web-
mapping gives rise to what is called the geospatial web, which has many new
applications and implications in the tourism industry, as more than 80 per cent of
travel content is geographically defined.

Information Classification: General

 • Social media has changed the way people search, find, read, gather, share,
develop and consume information, and the way people communicate with each
other and collaboratively create new knowledge. “tools of mass collaboration”
• Social media enables the following mass scale and interactive functionalities
(termed the 4Cs):

Multimedia-enabled conversations in various formats

Communication:
and timing (e.g. many-to-many, one-to-many,
simultaneously or asynchronous)
Sharing of content in a structured (e.g. by using tag) or
Cooperation:
unstructured way
Collaboration: Collaboration of individuals to solve a specificproblem
Making connections with and between both content and
Connection:
other people

Information Classification: General

 Internet and Tourism Distribution chains
• A channel of distribution is a set of inter-dependent companies or individuals
(including customers, suppliers and intermediaries) who participate in the flow of
goods, services, information and finance from the producer to the customer, in
order to make a product available for use or consumption.
• To make a product available for sale, a distribution channel should perform various
functions, usually referred to as marketing flows, in order to emphasize that these
functions flow through the channel at different points in time and through different
channel members (intermediaries, suppliers or customers).
• Every flow contributes to the production of valued services to suppliers and/or
customers, but it also carries an associated cost for implementing them. By helping
suppliers to perform the marketing flows, intermediaries provide product, possession,
place, credibility and time utilities.

Information Classification: General

 one stop shop experience

1) Product utility: Intermediaries enable customers to find, buy and

combine a large variety of goods at one place by buying in bulk, plus
sorting and allocation functions.

Information Classification: General

 2) Possession utility: Intermediaries facilitate tasks (e.g. exchange of
documents, transactions) enabling exchange of possession of a product from
the supplier to the customer/purchaser.

Information Classification: General

 3) Place utilities: Intermediaries operate (e-)retail outlets located in more
convenient and easily accessible places for potential customers.

Information Classification: General

 4) Credibility utilities: Intermediaries possess specialized knowledge and
brand credibility to recommend appropriate suppliers and goods according
to customers’ needs.

5) Time utilities: Intermediaries provide potential customers time convenience

in relation to the purchase and/or change of an order.

A new generation of tourism intermediaries has

risen for supporting Internet distribution –
Cyber intermediaries (e.g. online travel agency).

Information Classification: General

 ANY RISK? PRICE
CONTROL
LOSS OF INVENTORY

HIGH COST

Information Classification: General

 • Many tourism suppliers also fail to synchronize, monitor or update
inventory and prices across channels due to a lack of time or technology
support or poor management practices.
• To effectively manage prices and inventory online, tourism firms can use
channel management systems such as:

❖ Having one platform to update across many websites.

❖ Integration of the channel management platform with yield
management systems to optimize capacity and price allocation
across channels.
❖ Integration of reputation management though social media with
yield and channel management systems.

Information Classification: General

 • Internet distribution is not cheap and definitely not free. Green and Lomanno
(2012) suggest online commissions represent between 15 and 20 per cent of
the hotels' room revenue, while this percentage is expected to increase to 30
per cent by 2015. Thus e-distribution expenses represent a substantial part
of the suppliers' revenue.

Information Classification: General

 A Typology of New Tourism Cyber-Intermediaries
1) Merchant model most traditional model

• The cyber-intermediary buys a certain amount of inventory from tourism

suppliers (e.g. hotels, cruise operators and airlines).
• Gain inventory ownership and risk of selling it. The intermediary
determines prices, timing, package etc.
• Tourism suppliers usually sell at a lower price than the rack rate but they have
a secure payment.

Information Classification: General

 • Inventory ownership
• Risk of selling

Information Classification: General

 A Typology of New Tourism Cyber-Intermediaries

2) Commissionable or retail model

• The cyber-intermediary provides information about inventory levels and
prices from the suppliers, makes the products available for sale and then
receives a commission on sales/bookings.
• Suppliers (e.g. hotel) retain control over inventory and prices, but they
have to pay commission costs and assume the risk of not selling the
inventory online.

Information Classification: General

 Receivesa commission on
sales

• Inventory ownership!
• Risk of selling

Information Classification: General

 3) Opaque model
• The cyber-intermediary provides a platform whereby the customers can
determine the type of tourism services required and the range of prices they
are willing to pay.
• The cyber-intermediary communicates to suppliers (e.g. hotels) who bid for
the offer.
• Supplier’s identity is concealed from consumer until payment.
• Suppliers can get rid of unsold inventory last minute without associating
brand name with low prices.
• Commission based.

Information Classification: General

 Method of Operation
• When hotel rooms, airline seats, or rental
cars go unsold, they are filled by travel
companies through companies like
Hotwire.
• Hotwire does not identify the participating
companies until after the purchaser has paid
so as not to directly compete with regular
retail sales of the travel partners.
• This strategy allows Hotwire partners to
clear out their supply and sell inventory
that would otherwise go unsold.
• Hotwire reveals the prices and the travel
dates of all their products upfront and
does not sell via a "bidding" or "auction"
model.
Information Classification: General
Information Classification: General
Information Classification: General
Information Classification: General
 4) Auction model
• The cyber-intermediary provides platforms enabling suppliers to meet
buyers, and conduct various types of auctions using a traditional model or
reverse auctions (advertising for supplies they need).

• Auctions are used by tourism suppliers for several reasons including:

- Creating online buzz and promotion of a new service as auctions tend to
create a lot of e-WOM
- Disposing of distressed inventory
- Optimizing prices for a product of low capacity levels
- Identifying and targeting new market segments

Information Classification: General

Information Classification: General
 Group Buying
5) Coupons
Companies wishing to promote their services through these websites create
and sell online coupons at a major markdown. No “wasted” advertising,
measurable exposure to market segments, bring customers directly to them,
also gather marketing details.

Information Classification: General

 6) Referral service model or meta-search engines
• The cyber-intermediaries do not get access or ownership to inventory, but their
software is allowed access to the supplier’s website to trawl for results searched
for by customers.
• These intermediaries are popular with travelers as they save them a lot of time
and online comparison, while suppliers have to pay them a commission/referral
fee when travelers select and click their offer to be diverted to the supplier’s
website and complete the purchase.

Information Classification: General

Information Classification: General
 Factors Affecting Technology
Adoption and Use
Type of factor Firms’ adoption and use of technology
Firms’ characteristics such as size, management and
Factors related ownership style, management support and commitment,
to the availability of funds to invest on technology, firm’s attitudes
stakeholder towards technology innovation and use, firms’ and staff’s skills
and ability to exploit ICT.

Technology functionality, technology integration with existing

Factors related
information systems and application, security issuesof
to the
technology, cost of technology, technology’s returnon
technology
investment, technology’s alignment with the firm’sstrategy.

Competitors’ use of technology, suppliers’ push for using

Factors related
technology, partners’ push for using technology, use
to the
technology for increasing the professionalism and imageof
environment
the firm to a high techfirm.
Information Classification: General
 ICT, Internet and Social Media Adoption
• Based on travelers’ use and adoption of the Internet, firms have traditionally
divided travelers into lookers and bookers, but Web 2.0 has changed that
situation.
• Travelers have become partial employees by (collaboratively) designing,
distributing and promoting tourism services online.
• As travellers use the Internet not only for looking, but also for booking services,
their technology usage profile expands from lookers to bookers to travellers
using the Internet for one or more of the following tasks:
sharing and distributing travel content with social networks; critiquing and
discussing travel content online; evaluating travel content and content writers (e.g.
like buttons on Facebook); and writing and creating travel content.

Information Classification: General

 ICT, Internet and Social Media Adoption
• Travelers add value to the firm’s value and distribution chain by engaging in a
variety of uses of the Internet.
• Thus, to better exploit travelers’ use of technology and their active involvement
in firm’s value chain, tourism firms need to understand the technographic profile
of travelers and the factors influencing it.

A technographic profile

Information Classification: General