Benefit segmentation of potential wellbeing tourists

hotmama.at

Routledge Advances in Tourism, 2008

The basis for successful marketing is to understand and satisfy consumer needs. Sometimes it is even possible to satisfy one individual customer's needs. In the tourism industry an individually customized tourism experience can be developed, but the market for such high-end tourism products is small. This does not, however, mean that the only alternative is to appeal to the mass market. The intermediate solution is to understand which groups of tourists have similar needs and develop tourism products that match group needs. This approach is referred to as market segmentation. The aim of this chapter is to analyze market segmentation studies in tourism research over the past decade, review recent prototypical examples of different segmentation approaches and discuss theoretical and methodological issues related to market segmentation studies. Recommendations are presented that provide guidance to researchers and students with respect to how to best avoid potential pitfalls that may lead to misinterpretations of segmentation solutions and, consequently, sub-optimal strategic decisions.

Journal of Travel Research, 2008

Keywords: a posteriori market segmentation, data-driven market segmentation, cluster analysis, factor-cluster analysis It is now widely accepted among tourism researchers that tourists are not one homogeneous group of people who seek the same benefits from a destination, have the same expectations, undertake the same vacation activities and perceive the same vacation components as attractive. Tourists are highly heterogeneous. Because it is typically not possible to customize a tourism product for each tourist, market segmentation can be used to identify groups of similar tourists which can be targeted with offers satisfying their specific needs . The concept of market segmentation (Wedel and Kamakura 1998) has consequently been embraced both by tourism industry and tourism researchers, it "is essential for marketing success: the most successful firms drive their businesses based on segmentation" (Lilien and Rangaswamy 2002: p. 61).

Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & …, 2005

2008

Tourists are not all the same, they have different pictures of their ideal vacation. Tourists are heterogeneous. Market segmentation is the strategic tool to account for heterogeneity among tourists by grouping them into market segments which include members similar to each other and dissimilar to members of other segments. Both tourism researchers and tourism industry use market segmentation widely to study opportunities for competitive advantage in the marketplace. This chapter explains the foundations of market segmentation, discusses alternative ways in which market segments can be formed, guides the reader through two practical examples, highlights methodological difficulties and points to milestone publications and recently published applications of market segmentation in the field of tourism.

Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 2005

Market segmentation has developed to become a generally accepted and widely applied concept in strategic marketing. However, the gap between academic research aiming at increased sophistication of the methodology and managerial use has steadily increased. This paper takes the perspective of a destination manager and compares two segmentation approaches. One typically used in destination management (a priori geographical segmentation) and another one that is common in academic literature (a posteriori behavioural segmentation). The comparison emphasizes managerial usefulness (implying maximization of match between the tourists' vacation needs and the destinations' offer) and is illustrated with an empirical guest survey data set for Austria.

Journal of Travel Research, 2014

Data analysts in industry and academia make heavy use of market segmentation analysis to develop tourism knowledge and select commercially attractive target segments. Within academic research alone, approximately 5% of published articles use market segmentation. However, the validity of data-driven market segmentation analyses depends on having available a sample of adequate size. Moreover, no guidance exists for determining what an adequate sample size is. In the present simulation study using artificial data of known structure, the impact of the difficulty of the segmentation task on the required sample size is analyzed in dependence of the number of variables in the segmentation base. Under all simulated data circumstances, a sample size of 70 times the number of variables proves to be adequate. This finding is of substantial practical importance because it will provide guidance to data analysts in academia and industry who wish to conduct reliable and valid segmentation studies.

Tourism Analysis, 2012

2003

This article was originally published as: Dolnicar, S, Using cluster analysis for market segmentation -typical misconceptions, established methodological weaknesses and some recommendations for improvement

2002

'3 wo .. 8d 8;/l.D to dDd;e~tD tlfis d;SSD,t~t;o" to lleY IatA., wAo ~8w~yS ;"sP;'Dd ~d lleot;lI~tDd lieD d"';"1J lleY Stl4d;DS III 1.5.8 Key success factors 12 1.6 CHAPTER CLASSIFICATION 13 CHAPTER 2: AN ANAL YSIS OF MARKET SEGMENTATION 2.1 INTRODUCTION 14 2.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF MARK ET SEGMENTATION 16 2.3 BENEFITS OF MARKET SEGMENTATION 17 IX 2.4 PROCESS OF DEVELOPING A MARKET SEGMENTATION STRATEGY 19 2.4.1 Step 1 : Analyse the existing information 20 2.4.1.1 Dimensions of a market analysis 20 a. Actual and potential market size 20 b. Market growth 20 c. Market profitability analysis 21 2.4.1.2 Factors influencing tourist behaviour and decision~making 23 a. The significance of culture 23 b. Social factors 24 c. Personal influences on behaviour d. Psychological influences 2.4.2 Step 2: Define the markets to be segmented 2.4.3 Step 3: Identify and apply the bases of segmentation a. Geographic segmentation b. Demographic segmentation. . c. Psychographic segmentation d. Behavioural segmentation 2.4.4 Step 4: Methods for deriving segments a. Cluster analysis b. Regression analysis/Discriminant analysis c. Automatic interaction detector analysis d. Latent class analysis e. Judgment based segmentation f. Factor and component analysis 44 g. Expenditure patterns 44 h. Arrival fig ures i. Mode of travel as a segment descriptor j. Travel motivation 47 k. Economic impact analysis 48 2.4.5 Step 5: Evaluate the segments 49 x 2.4.6 Step 6: Select the segments 51 2.4.7 Step 7: Target marketing strategies 51 a. Mass marketing or undifferentiated marketing b. Concentrated marketing/Niche marketing c. Differentiated marketing d. Customised marketing 2.4.8 Step 8: Appropriate marketing mixes 2.4.9 Step 9: The positioning process a. The positioning process b. Positioning strategies 2.5