Understanding the Consumer: Travel Motivations and Buyer Behavior

1. Understanding the Consumer: Travel Motivations and Buyer Behavior Objective: Discussing the meaning of and marketing implications of buyer behavior for travel and tourism.

2. Individual Motivations and Buyer Behavior • Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying behavior of the individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption. • Individuals make their choices among various vacation destinations and particular types of products based on several factors. • It is necessary for marketing managers to understand how internal or psychological processes influence travelers.

3. Understanding needs and wants • What are people looking for when they visit different destinations? • Why would a tourist choose to holiday in Florida rather than Spain – what variables are at work apart from cost? • Why would he choose to travel with British Airways, but not with Lufthansa? • Why would he buy an independent inclusive tour, but not a group tour?

4. Need Satisfaction Theory • All consumer purchases, including choice of travel destination, are made to satisfy aneed of the consumer. The individual has a desire for something????? • Do people travel just to travel? • People do not travel just to travel. Travel fills some need in each consumer. Travelers’ needs differ.

5. Do we really need? • Often people talk about what they need, say a new television set, a new dress, or a holiday. But do they really need these things? Or are they just expressing a desire for more? • Due to today’s increased material consumption patterns, it is becoming difficult to distinguish wants (e.g. reference group influence)from needs.

6. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Self-actualization (e.g. self-fulfillment, etc.) Ego needs (e.g. self-respect, status, success, etc.) Social needs (e.g. affection, love, friendship, etc.) Safety needs (e.g. security, protection, etc.) Physiological needs (e.g. food, water, air, etc.)

7. According to Maslow, the more basic needs have to be satisfied (satisfied according to the needs of our cultural group) before our interest will focus on higher level needs. • However, according to Alderfer, and his ERG (existence, relatedness, and growth needs) theory, (1) more than one need may be operative at the same time, (2) if the satisfaction of a higher level need is frustrated, the desire to satisfy a lower level need increases.

8. The Main Motives for Travel and Tourism • The psychological or internal infleunces affecting individuals’ choices are named as motivations. • Motivation for travel and tourism can be categorized as; • Physical motivations • Cultural motivations • Personal motivations • Prestige and Status motivations (Mathieson and Wall, 1993)

9. Physical motivations • refreshment of body and mind (rest and relaxation) – beach holidays, lakes and mountains, etc.; • for health purposes (i.e. either medically prescribed or undertaken voluntarily) – spas, etc.; • for participation in sports – skiing, canoeing, safari parks, ponytrekking, etc.; • pleasure, - fun, excitement, romance and entertainment, to shop.

10. Cultural motivations • curiosity about foreign countries, people and places; • interests in art, music, architecture, folklore – music festivals, theatre visits, etc.; • interest in historical places (remains, monuments, churches); • experiencing specific international and national events - Olympic Games, Oktoberfest, etc.

11. Personal motivations • visiting relatives and friends; • meeting new people and seeking new friendships; • seeking new and different experiences in different environments – sailing etc.; • escaping from one’s own permanent social environment (i.e. desire for a change) • personal excitement of traveling; • visiting places and people for spiritual reasons (i.e. pilgrimages) • traveling for travel’s sake

12. Prestige and Status motivations • pursuit of hobbies – craft or painting holidays etc.; • continuation of education or learning- study tours etc.; • seeking of business contacts and professional goals – fairs, etc.; • conference and meetings; • ego enhancement and sensual indulgence; • fashion

13. Model of Buyer Behavior for Travel and Tourism • How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts that the company might use? The company that understands how consumers will respond to product features, prices, advertising has a great advantage over its competitors. • According to the “model of buyer behavior”, marketing (4Ps) and other stimuli (environmental) starts the response model.

14. All these enter into the buyer’s head (black box) and then turn into responses as product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount.

15. Process 1 – Stimulus inputs • The marketing stimuli consists of the 4Ps – product, place, price and promotion and other stimuli including major forces and events in the buyer’s environment (economic, technological, political and cultural) motivate individuals. Dozens of tour operators offer holidays packages in dozens of destinations to attract travellers’ attention.

16. Process 2 – Communication channels • Both formal communication channels or media (advertising, brochures, sales promotions, the internet etc.) and informal information received from family and friends and reference groups (word-of-mouth) influence behavior, in other words, the purchase decision.

17. Process 3 – Perception filters in the buying decision process • Perception may be defined as the process by which an individual selects, orginizes, and interprets information to create a meaninful picture of the world. • It is a function of attitudes, motivations, experince and learning related to a previous purchase. • All the information and stimulus inputs pass through a perceptual filter. This filter may suppress much of the information, highligh or distort some parts of it. • A motivated person is ready to act. However, how that person acts is infleunced by his/her perception of the situation.

18. As a result, in the same situation, two people with the same motivation may act differently based on how they perceive the situation. While one person may perceive the staff of an X restaurant helpful and friendly, another may find them unprofessional. • People form different perceptions of the same stimulus because of three perceptual processes; selective exposure, selective distortion, selective retention.

19. Process 4: Buyer characteristics, the decision process and motivation • Perception is largely determined by individual’s characteristics and attitudes. • The intercation of (1) with needs, wants and goals, (2) socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, (3) psychographic attributes (personality traits), (4) attitudes, and (5) motivation determine an individual buyer’s disposition to act in certain ways. They provide or reinforce the motivation or act as constraints upon purshase decisions.

20. Process 5: Purchase choice/decisions/outputs • Action on purhases is linked directly to motivations which is in turn influenced from buyer characteristics. • Buyers make their decisions regarding which type of product, what brand, what price, at what time and though what distribution outlet to purchase.

21. Process 6: Post-purchase and post-consumption feelings • The relationship between consumer expectations and perceived product performance determine postpurchase satisfaction or dissatisfaction. • The experience of consumption will affect all future attitudes. • If the product is satisfactory, the probability of repeat purchase and positive word-of-mouth is high. If the experience is unsatisfactory, the opposite will occur.

22. Consumer learns that satisfaction or dissatisfaction is associated with that purchase. • Almost all major purchases result in cognitive dissonance or discomfort caused by postpurchase conflict. Companies need to take steps to reduce dissonance.

23. Useful Links and Sources • Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (1999). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. NJ. • Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2006) Principles of Marketing (11th ed.). Prentice Hall. NJ. • Middleton, V.T.C. (2004) Marketing in Travel and Tourism (3rd ed). Elsevier. Oxford. • http://www.hotelsmag.com • http://www.tourism.bilkent.edu.tr/~eda