24 MODELLING TOURISM BEHAVIOUR – Contributions by Antonia Correia
24 MODELLING TOURISM BEHAVIOUR – Contributions by Antonia Correia
Introduction
Tourist consumer behaviour is derived from consumer behaviour research but is distinguished from that major study area due to the paradoxical characteristics of the tourist product (Correia, 2000). Buying a trip or a holiday is as demanding an effort as it is an enthusiastic pleasure! (Correia, 2009). It is demanding and requires a high level of involvement from the individual because it involves deciding on many aspects, in a context of uncertainty that brings about risk and anxiety. Most of the time, tourists are not familiar with the place they are travelling to, the hotel they are staying at, the activities they are enrolling in, and the transport they are being driven on, but they still need to decide (Correia, 2009).
The multifaceted decision-making process and intricacy of the tourism product (and its concepts) lead to a highly composite study, which is also as demanding as it is enthusing for tourist behaviour researchers. Furthermore, tourism is an experience and thus involves intricate emotions. In fact, the emotional component is transversal to the travel experience as it is present before, during and after each and every trip. Before travelling, people put great effort into collecting information about the tourist destination and day dream for weeks, months, even years, about their holidays and their travel experiences. Tourists plan their travels in advance and fantasise about their experiences just before leaving home and during travelling because tourists interact with the destination, in a mutual influence process which demands great involvement from the participant. After travelling, the post-purchase/experience phase is long-lasting, as tourists recall their travel experiences for ages, remembering their holidays with friends and family, telling stories and adventures to others, (re)seeing photographs, and writing travelogues (Pearce, 2005). The overall experience in a destination is the basis for tourists’ satisfaction and their image of that destination. Considering two main aspects of interest in consumer behaviour, namely the decision-making/choice and satisfaction, these concepts present also a particularity, as tourist expectations influence tourist satisfaction. Products’ quality attributes are easy to measure as they are tangible; tourism experiences are evaluated as a whole and incorporate not only destination attributes but also personal feelings/reactions and travelling consequences/benefits.
Further, tourism is not only an economic business but also a social one, a “stage” where many people interact, and an area where psychology plays a great role. Tourism is what Pearce (2005:11) calls “a people-to-people business”, so tourist behaviour incorporates social, psychological, and economic analysis while consumer behaviour research has had a strong economic and business focus.
These specificities of tourism purchase-consumption behaviour broug