Introduction
“A hundred miles of travel is better than a thousand miles of scroll.”
-Confucius
Experience is a great teacher. A single place, person and/or event can teach an individual more than what he can learn from the four corners of a classroom. Theories can be discussed; it is easy to say and explain what ought to be done and how to do it but the real battle begins once the student or even the teacher steps into the real world. The theories and practices will be put to the test and, more often than not, it is easier said than done.
People travel to experience different cultures, interact with different kinds of people and taste different cuisines first hand. They travel because they have the urge to set forth and discover for themselves the beauty of this planet they call home. Pictures and images from postcards, magazines brochures and television advertisements fall short of providing fulfilment that actually being in the place can surpass.
According to Tarlow (2003), mass tourism is relatively new creation. World War II gave the average person the opportunity to travel. The deployment of soldiers to the front lines of battle around the world gave ordinary individuals the opportunity to see their neighbouring countries or people apart from their own. However, given the circumstances at that time they could not really get a hold of what the place or its people have to offer.
After the war and the because of capitalism, travelling became more convenient and less expensive. The accessibility of travelling changed the mindset of most westerners; they even deem travelling as a right and not a privilege. In addition, by the end of the nineteenth century travelling ceased to be an activity for the wealthy alone (Pires-O’Brien, 2001). Because of this, businesses started investing in the development of competent, safer and faster way to travel. Territories were kept so that countries can benefit from the inflow of capital being poured into the tourism industry. Those in the hotel industry are running in the race to acquire the prime lots in exotic destinations.
Experience is a great teacher. A single place, person and/or event can teach an individual more than what he can learn from the four corners of a classroom. Theories can be discussed; it is easy to say and explain what ought to be done and how to do it but the real battle begins once the student or even the teacher steps into the real world. The theories and practices will be put to the test and, more often than not, it is easier said than done.
People travel to experience different cultures, interact with different kinds of people and taste different cuisines first hand. They travel because they have the urge to set forth and discover for themselves the beauty of this planet they call home. Pictures and images from postcards, magazines brochures and television advertisements fall short of providing fulfilment that actually being in the place can surpass.
Tourism is an opportunity for people to play (Smith, 1989). Tourism in its true sense represents a human behaviour that Berlyne (1962) calls “Human exploratory behaviour.” This human behaviour includes expressive culture like the arts, sports and folklore.
According to Momsen (1999), the World Travel and tourism council estimated that tourists are spending 3.6 trillion dollars on goods and services directly or indirectly which is about 10.6 percent of the 1996 gross global product. In addition, because of the number of people availing tourism services it has provided one out of ten jobs worldwide or around 25.5 million people employed in tourism related companies. In the United States alone, the tourism industry was able to contribute at least ,000,000,000 to the country’s economy and was able to employ about 18,000,000 Americans with a combined salary of more than 0,000,000,000.
This means that more people depend on tourism for livelihood and that the decision of people to travel ultimately affects the source of income of others. As such, it is important to determine the deciding factors that affect consumer behaviour in relation to travel and tourism.
The following sections of the paper will be tackling influence factors and how they are able to contribute to the decision-making process of a tourist. Factors and influences to be discussed are demographics, motivation, learning, group, family, culture and subculture. A specific example will be given to illustrate how these influences and factors actually affected the decision making process. For this paper, the case of Joanne Wilson will be stated as an example.
Demographic Influences
Joanne is a 28-year-old employee from Melbourne. She is married with no kids. Her husband also works for the same company. Joanne is earning 0 AUD a week, while her husband is earning 0. Their combined salary is 4400 a month. This household income is allocated for utility bills, mortgage, food and transportation allowances among other expenses.
Their housing expenses is composed of ,144 for mortgage, 0 for water, 0 for gas, 00 for electricity, 5 for telephone and 0 for contents insurance. The expenses are shown on a per annum basis. These expenses run at 9 per week. On top of these, they spend around 0 for food, car and sports and recreation expenses. Therefore, their total household expenses for a week are 9.
This leaves them with 1 dollars. However, out of this only 200 dollars get to make it to their savings account. The other 1 goes to clothing, eating out and other luxury expenses. Since November of last year, Joanne and her husband have been planning on going on vacation. For the last four months, they were able to save 0. Aside from their monthly saving of 0, they were able to add 00 from their annual Christmas bonus making their total saving 00. Based on Joanne’s perception, this amount of money is enough to allow them to travel locally. However, Joanne’s decision to travel was not solely due to the trust that their savings will allow them to do so. Other factors led to the Wilson’s decision to take their well-earned vacation.
For example, the couple do not have any children to worry about. They are practically free to go on vacation and experience days of relaxation away form the hassles of their works. This, according to Joanne, played a crucial role in their decision to go on vacation. In addition, their work actually allows them to go on vacation since they both have 3 weeks of unused vacation leaves. This means that there were no time restrictions to pull them away from taking a break. Age is also a factor that influenced the decision of the couple to travel. They are both in their late twenties. This means that they are old enough to savour the experiences of travelling. On the other hand, they are not that old to mind the physical activities associated with travelling.
Aside from income, marital status and age, gender also plays a great role in consumer behaviour. According to Bem’s Gender Schema Theory (1981a), individuals acquire their attitudes, traits and behaviours dependable on their gender identity. This means that people’s gender identity serve as their organizing principles and as such, they process information based on their gender identity. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is solely based on the person being a male or a female. This is the case since gender identity pertains to the psychological sex of the individual (Spence 1984). Therefore, some males can be more feminine as some females while some females can be more masculine than some males.
In the case of Joanne and her husband’s decision to go on vacation, Joanne is leaning more towards the masculine females in comparison to her husband’s masculinity. This may be brought about by the fact that Joanne is earning more than her husband is. However, Joanne explained that her husband allows her to do the decision making when it comes to household related decisions. This includes planning trips for the two of them. She further explained that her husband is not a good planner and is not keen with budgeting that is why most of the purchasing power goes to her.
Nevertheless, her husband provides insight on items that will affect the two of them. The masculinity of Joanne in the household contributed to the decision to go on vacation since it is a determining factor in the decision making power of homemakers (Burns 1977). The claim that Joanne’s being a masculine female contributed to the decision to go on vacation was strengthen by Gentry and Doering’s claim that gender identity is a strong factor in the development of attitudes towards leisure activities (1977).
Motivation
Aside form the demographic factors, motivation also played a factor in the decision of Joanne to go on a vacation with her husband. There are several theories on consumer motivation. These consumer motivation theories offer different perspectives that will allow marketers to understand the motivations of consumers. In this section of the paper, six consumer motivation theories will be presented. At the end of this section, the applicable consumer motivation theory in the case of Joanne Wilson will be identified.
The first consumer motivation theory is hard-core behavioural perspective (Perner 2006). This perspective is based on conditionings that are operant and classical. This suggests that consumers learn through their own experiences. Hard core behaviourists believe that it is important to reward good behaviour to the most possible extent. To them advertising is not of importance.
The second consumer motivation theory is Social Learning perspective. In contrast to hard-core behavioural perspective, social learning perspective leaves room for vicarious learning. This perspective implies that consumers learn by observing the positive or negative consequences of other people’s behaviour (Perner 2006). The experiences of friends or family members play a significant role in social learning perspective as well as advertising. This means that social learning theorists believe that consumers are influenced by what they see on television, hear on the radio, or read in newsprints. However, the strength of learning must be more than the strength of own experiences.
The third consumer motivation theory is the learning approach. This theory is geared more towards the idea of the thinking consumer rather than attributing consumerism to behaviours (Perner 2006). It is emphasized in this theory that consumers reason with themselves regarding the consequences of their decision to purchase or otherwise. Therefore, in the learning theory, culture holds a significant place since assumptions are culturally ingrained.
Biological approach pertains to the role that genetics paly in the consumption of products. This theory is more applicable to foods and beverages. This si the case since biological approach states that genetics dictates what a consumer wants to eat and therefore what the consumer will most likely purchase of grocery shelves. However, this theory is misleading. This si the case since it displaces the role that culture plays in the determination of food choices (Hawkins, Roger, Best & Coney 1998). It is the case that some culture have food preferences that also affect their consumer behaviours as individuals.
The next theory is Rational Expectation. It pertains to the economic way of looking at the world. This means that rationalists believe that people think rationally and have the perfect information (Perner 2006). However, it is often the case that their assumptions are unrealistic. The last consumer motivation theory is the psychoanalytic perspective. This perspective looks upon the theories of Sigmund Freud. In addition, it looks at how sex and early childhood experiences unconsciously affect decisions latter in life (Hawkins, Roger, Best & Coney 1998).
In case of Joanne Wilson’s decision to take a vacation with his husband can be attributed to the psychoanalytic factor. This is the case since the decision was made partly because the location that visited was actually Joanne’s hometown.
Learning
Unlike other tourists, domestic or international, Joanne did not spend long hours surfing the internet to look for the perfect vacation spot. There was also no need to pick-up brochures and other information rich reading materials to help her in making the decision. This is the case since Joanne is familiar with her destination of choice. It was stated earlier that Joanne and her husband made their way to Joanne’s hometown for their vacation.
This means that Joanne will not be needing roadmaps to point them towards their destination. She does not need travel guides to tell her all abut the wonderful sights that they can visit. All of this information is recorded on the mind from her childhood years. She grew up in that town and spent quite long hour trekking and sight seeing. In addition, she did not need to look for accommodations since they would be staying at her parents’ house. In a way, Joanne’s vacation also doubled as her chance to reunite with friends and relatives that she was not able to visit for a long time.
It may seem that Joanne did not go through the learning process that affected her decision to go on vacation. However, she did go through the learning. The process that she went through is actually lengthier than the normal traveller’s learning process about a vacation destination. Her learning process started when she was just a kid. The memories of hiking with her father remind in her mind well into adulthood. When her father died shortly after she got married, she got afraid of immediately going back to her hometown. However, the memories of happy times in the town were she grew up causes her bittersweet feeling, although, the sweetness often overcomes the bitterness. When Joanne would hear hiking, she would immediately associate with her hometown and get excited.
Joanne’s reaction can be explained by classical conditioning. Pavlov formulated classical conditioning (Bartels & Nelissen 2002). Classical conditioning has four parts – unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus and conditioned response. To explain classical conditioning the famous experiment of Pavlov will be cited.
When Pavlov was formulating classical conditioning, he experimented with dogs and food. When dogs are being they salivate. At this stage, food is the unconditioned stimulus, while salivation is the unconditioned response. Pavlov then started pairing the feeding process with the sound of a bell. Initially, the sound is neutral since it does not have the capacity to elicit the unconditioned response. However, as a pairing continues the sounds takes the form of the conditioned stimulus. Since salivating occurs when the bell was rang, salivation is now considered as the conditioned response (as cited in Bartels & Nelissen, 2002).
The classical conditioning learning theory by Pavlov suggests that consumers can be taught to buy certain products. All that needs to be done is to associate a product with a certain reaction. In the case of Joanne, the thought of hiking elicited the thought of going back to her hometown, which resulted to her feeling happy. Thus, Joanne learned that hiking is associated with a feeling of happiness. Clearly, this kind of thinking allowed Joanne to make the decision easily.
Group and Family Influences
Even though, Joanne has not been to her hometown for more than three years, she is still has an open line of communication with her friends and relative back at home. Internet and mobile phones are her tools in contacting her mom and siblings as well as other relatives and friends. They constantly share pictures over email. Long hours are also spent chatting or place VOIP calls. It is evident that despite being away from her family and friends, they still play a crucial role in her life.
In analysing the influence of family and friends in Joanne’s decision to take a vacation, it is important to determine the kinds of groups there are as well as the various degrees of influences. A framework that can be used in analysing the influence of family and friends on a consumer is the presence of reference groups (Solomon 2002). There are three kinds of groups being used to influence the decision making process of consumers.
First is the aspirational reference group. This group is composed of people or organization that a person would like to compare his or herself to. For example, athletes are being used to endorse products ranging from cereal to shoes. This is being done to convey the message that if consumers purchase and use the products being endorsed, there is chance that they will be associated with the endorser themselves (Solomon 2002).
The second reference group is Associative. This reference group is like the aspirational group, although this is more realistic. The third reference group is dissociative. This group is composed of people or organizations that people would not like to become. For example, younger people could not want to be associated with older people like their parents because they are thought of as uncool.
In the case of degree of influence, there are two degrees namely primary and secondary. As the name suggests, primary influences are more influence than secondary influences. It may be the case that secondary influence can only affect a certain area of a person’s decision-making process. In Joanne’s case, it can be considered that the primary influence is her husband and the secondary influences are her friends and family. Since her husband is a primary influence and he is in favour of taking the vacation, Joanne’s influenced by her husband wiliness to go.
Culture and Subcultural Influences
Culture is the way people look, analyse and understand the things around them. They give meaning to their environment and the people in it as well as the events that transpire based on their cultural background. This means that culture affects consumer behaviour directly. This section of the paper will be discussing the role of culture in consumer behaviour. The discussion will be used to determine how has culture contributed in Joanne’s decision to go on vacation.
There are two kinds of consumption – sacred and profane. Sacred consumption pertains to objects that are apart from everyday objects as such they are treated with respect. On the other hand, profane consumption involves ordinary or everyday objects (Ratneshwar, Mick & Huffman 2000). Therefore, they are not treated as special as sacred ones. However, it is the case that sacred objects can be transformed to profane objects or profane objects can be turned into sacred objects.
This reversal of attributes can happen through three. First, there is desacralization. This means that a sacred symbol has been displaced from its special attributes. This can happen when a famous painting is massed produced and sold to tourists (Ratneshwar, Mick & Huffman 2000). Another process is sacrilization. This is the reversed process of desacralization where profane objects are attributed sacred meanings. This usually occurs with the formation of fandome such as that of Elvis Presley.
In the case of Joanne’s decision to go on vacation, sacrilization occurred. This is the case since her hometown used to be a profane destination since she lived there. However, as time goes by, she got lesser and lesser chances of visiting the place and thus experiences in that place no longer occur on a daily basis. In addition, the thought of her deceased father lingers every time she thinks of her hometown.
This indicates that Joanne’s decision to go on vacation was influenced by the length of time that she was not able to visit the place. She is longing to go back to the things used to be when she lived close to her family and friends as well as the times when her father was still alive. All in all she wants to share the joys of reminiscing with the new man in her life – her husband.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the decision Joanne made about going on vacation is not merely due to the spare money that they have. I t may seem as the most obvious factors for the vacation. However, as the probing got deeper and deeper, it became apparent that a number of factors directly or indirectly influence Joanne. It is also the influences go to work in both the conscious and subconscious level.
There is more to making a product or service more attractive to consumer than just price wars. It is important to note how people perceive the product or service’s impact on their lives. Consumers want what is best for them. This means that products and services must appeal to consumers and present themselves in such a way that people will be able to see themselves actually using the products or services and loving them.
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