Tourism and Consumer
Behavior
Presented by: Bill Brioso
Objectives
Identify the factors that influence consumer behavior;
Discuss the stages of the buyer decision-making process;
Explain the role of service quality in consumer satisfaction;
Differentiate individual versus organizational buyer behavior, and
Enumerate the different models of consumer behavior.
Introduction
According to Belch (2008), consumer behavior is the process and
activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing,
using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy
their needs and desires.
Purchase decisions, specially for tourism products are usually arrived at
after a long and detailed process of information search, brand
comparison, and evaluation.
Factors That Influence Consumer
Behavior
Motivation
Culture
Age and Gender
Social Class
Lifestyle
Life cycle
Reference groups
Personality and self-concept
Motivation
Motivation are inner drives that make people a specific plan of action to satisfy
their needs. A person who has the ability to understand how motivation works will
have the ability to gain competitive advantage. If one is able to identify what triggers
purchase, he can actually create the scenario to influence the purchase.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the most popular theory of motivation as it is able
to outline the different needs of man, and rank them based on degree of importance
in a simple and easy to understand manner.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Push and Pull Factors (Dann 1977 &
Crompton 1979)
Push Factors (Sociopsychological Pull Factors (Cultural Motives)
Factors) Your text here
Escape from mundane environment Novelty
Exploration and evaluation of self Education
Relaxation
Prestige
Regression
Enhancement of Kinship/Relationship
Dann (1977) describes travel motivators as linked with Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs. He states that there are two factors that makes you want to travel: push
and pull factors. The push factors are those that make you want to travel while
the pull factors are those affect where you would want to go.
Kripendoff (1987)
He elucidates that travel is motivated by a “going away from” rather than “going
-
toward” something. He classifies these theories into eight explanations of travel which are:
Recuperation and regeneration
Compensation and social integration
Escape
Communication
Freedom and self-determination
Self-realization
Happiness
Broadening of the mind
Culture
The impact of culture cannot be disregarded in the study of consumer behavior.
According to social scientist Geert Hoofstede, he defines
culture as the collective mental programming of the
human mind which distinguishes one group of people
from another.
His cultural framework can be used to explain the
differences in consumer behavior across countries, and
can be a guide in increasing efficiency in global
marketing.
Age and Culture
Age is the number of years a person has been living. It is a traditional way of
segmenting the market and also greatly influences consumer behavior. Likes
and preferences of consumers are normally dependent on age.
Gender, on the other hand, also influences behavior. The female market is
easily increasing and has been observed to be more discriminating than its
male counterparts.
Social Class
One of the most important factor influencing consumer behavior
Determined by factors such as income, wealth, education, occupation, family
prestige, and value of home
Market is commonly been referred in the Philippines through letters Class AB
or CDE market.
Travel products and services are most commonly designed for the Class AB
Lifestyle
It is a pattern of living as expressed in one’s activities, interests, and opinion
(Kotler et al. 2010)
Marketers are in search of relationships between their products and people’s
lifestyle
Example:
Starbucks in the Philippines because it was a huge fit between the product
and Filipino lifestyle--- the Filipinos love to talk over a cup of coffee.
Life Cycle
Refers to the stages an individual goes through in their lifetime
Single people choose destinations that have fun and adventure more than
those who are married and have young children
Reference Groups
Known as set of people who has indirect or direct influence on other people’s
attitude or behavior.
It can be a member of the family, a teacher, classmate, colleague, boss etc.
It is also extended to other experienced travelers and food experts through
their blogs.
It extremely important in selling products because the product is intangible,
hence, word of mouth plays an important trigger for purchase decisions.
Personality and Self-Concept
Personality refers to distinguish psychological characteristics that lead to
relatively consistent and enduring responses to the environment.
Consumer’s self-concept refers to his personal mental picture (Kotler et. Al
2010)
Consumers tend to go to products that reflects their personality
The Buyer Decision Making Process
Need Recognition
The Consumer Decision Processes (also known as Buyer Decision Processes)
refer to the decision-making stages that a consumer undergoes before,
during, and after they purchase a product or service.
John Dewey introduced 5 stages which consumers go through when they are
considering a purchase:
• Problem or need recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Purchase
• Post-purchase behavior
Problem or Need Recognition
This is the first stage of the Consumer Decision Process in which the consumer
is able to recognize what the problem or need is and subsequently, what
product or kind of product would be able to meet this need.
oftentimes recognized as the first and most crucial step in the process
A need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli. Internal stimuli refers
to a personal perception experienced by the consumer, such as hunger, thirst,
and so on.
Evaluating Alternatives
During this stage, consumers evaluate all of their products or brand options on a
scale of attributes which have the ability to deliver the benefit that they are
seeking.
In order for a marketing organization to increase the likelihood that their brand is
part of the evoked set for many consumers, they need to understand what
benefits consumers are seeking and specifically, which attributes will be most
influential to their decision-making process.
It is important to note that consumers evaluate alternatives in terms of the
functional and psychological benefits that they offer.
During this stage, consumers can be significantly influenced by their attitude as
well as the degree of involvement that they may have with the product, brand, or
overall category.
Ultimately, consumers must be able to effectively assess the value of all the
products or brands in their evoked set before they can move on to the next step
of the decision process.
Purchase
During this time, the consumer may form an intention to buy the most
preferred brand because he has evaluated all the alternatives and identified
the value that it will bring him.
The final purchase decision, can be disrupted by two factors: 1. Negative
feedback of others and our level of motivation to comply or accept the
feedback. 2. The decision may be disrupted due to a situation that one did
not anticipate, such as losing a job or a retail store closing down.
During this stage, the consumer must decide the following: 1. from whom he
should buy, 2. when to buy, and 3. whether to buy.
Post-Purchase Behavior
How the customer feels about a purchase will significantly influence whether
he will purchase the product again or consider other products within the
brand repertoire.
Cognitive dissonance is when the customer experiences feelings of post-
purchase psychological tension or anxiety.
Some companies like to engage their consumers with post-purchase
communications in an effort to influence their feelings about their purchase
and future purchases.
Consumer Satisfaction Through Service
Quality
Customer satisfaction and service quality are
considered as a crucial aspect in business, for the
development of a company highly depends on how
good they maintain their customer through
service. Indeed good service quality is expected
to result in customer satisfaction, therefore will
increase customers retention and loyalty.
Benefits of Service Quality
Customer Retention
-helps build loyalty among consumers and make these customers speak
positively about the service provider.
Avoidance of Price Competition
-helps in maximizing potential revenue and veers the company away from a
price war.
Retention of Good Employees
-when an operation is well run and produces high quality products,
recruitment, training, and retentions of employees are easy.
Reduction of Costs
-costs are minimized if there are repeat customers, absence of a price war, and low
turnover rates of emplyees
Organizational Buyer Behavior
The behavior of an organization shown
in buying goods or services is
called organizational buying behavior.
The organizations buy goods or
services for business use, resale,
produce other goods or provide
services.
Typology of Tourists
Plog’s Tourist Motivational Model
-Plog's model is largely regarded as a cornerstone of
tourism theory.
- He essentially delineated these types of tourists
according to their personalities. He then plotted these
along a continuum in a bell-shaped, normally distributed
curve. This curve identified the rise and fall of
destinations.
Cohen’s Model
-Cohen's model of typologies of tourists is an early
conceptual framework aimed at the sociological analysis of
the phenomenon of modern tourism.
- identifies four different categories of tourists within a
spectrum of institutionalized or noninstitutionalized
characteristics.
Stewart’s Model of Holidaytaking
explain unplanned travel decision making. Research on
traveler decision making suggests that the nature of one's
trip may change substantially depending upon new
information, constraints, and a disparity between
anticipations and actual situations.
