Chinese venturers to Pacific Small Island Developing States: Travel and lifestyle

This study emphasizes the necessity to understand the needs of the growing Chinese market, while also assessing how ready Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the South Pacific are for these new visitors. Through a mixed method approach, combining individual visitor surveys and focus groups, this study investigates the lifestyle characteristics of outbound Chinese tourists to the Cook Islands and the motivation and travel behavior of these travelers. We refine a model for the travel lifestyle of Chinese tourists that has applicability to SIDS elsewhere around the world

An exploratory study on the use of information sources by consumers to select Australian regional travel agencies

[Abstract]: This research investigates the information sources consumers used to select regional travel agencies to make their travel arrangements. The research design involves two stages, in-depth interviews with 13 participants and a mail-out survey of 400. The in-depth interviews highlighted the need to remove three particular information sources (travel guidebooks, travel or automotive clubs and local tourist offices) for inclusion in the mail-out survey and replaced with two other information sources (television lifestyle programs and travel consultants) worthy of investigation. The mail-out survey revealed that personal experience was the most important information source used in the selection of a regional travel agency whilst yellow pages were identified as the least influential. The findings highlighted the relative importance of the 11 information sources investigated and also suggested that informal sources were more important than formal sources when consumers search for information sources to assist them with their selection of the travel agencies to patronise

Analyzing the User-Generated Content on Disintermediation Effect: A Latent Segmentation Study of Bookers and Lookers

This study analyzes the perceptions of different groups of consumers for and against the disintermediation of travel agencies also considering the relative power in influencing the tourist’s choices exerted by user generated-content (UGC). A web-based survey is carried out in Spain and 961complete questionnaires was obtained. A latent segmentation was applied on factors identified running an exploratory factor analysis on a list of 16 statements, the use and frequency of use of the Internet to make hotel reservations, if consumers are bookers or lookers, and they have changed hotel reservations after having read UGC. Findings revealed that different clusters exist based on the identified factors and aforementioned variables, and that significant differences between these clusters based on sociodemographic characteristics, their behaviour in using the Internet for searching for information and/or buying, and the extent to which they change the accommodation that had been suggested by a travel agent after having read UG