Daniel M. Spencer

Segmenting special interest visitors to a destination region based on the volume of their expenditures: an application to rail-trail users

Various general tourist markets have been successfully segmented based on the volume of tourists’ expenditures in destination areas. However, the approach has been rarely employed in more narrowly defined ‘special interest’ tourist markets. This study tested the viability of expenditure-based segmentation in the case of a special interest market comprised of visitors to a rail-trail in the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA. Nonresident visitors were classified as light, medium, and heavy spenders based on their total expenditures in the region. Although heavy spenders comprised only 33% of the Trail’s market, their spending accounted for 65% of the expenditures of the market as a whole. Compared to their counterparts, heavy spenders were more likely to have been mountain biking aficionados, to have had higher incomes, and to have had longer lengths of stay and greater involvement with recreation in the study region. Findings suggest how heavy spenders can be successfully reached, attracted, and served.

A profile of the fall foliage tourism market

Although fall color touring has long been pursued by the traveling public and promoted by destinations, it has been the subject of extraordinarily little research. This article helps fill this knowledge gap and assists destination marketers seeking to more effectively attract this market niche. Analyses of data from a telephone survey of households in the Great Lakes region indicate that marketers who wish to attract fall color tourists should promote a wide range of ancillary activities in addition to foliage viewing and target primarily older individuals in nearby markets.

Understanding recreation activity participants as clientele groups of multi-use recreation areas

The goals of participants in a given type of recreation activity available in a specific recreation area may be in conflict with those of participants in other types of recreation available in the same area, creating difficult challenges for area managers. Moreover, little is known about the characteristics and behaviour patterns of such groups and how they might differ from one another, leaving managers less equipped to communicate effectively with them than would otherwise be the case. This article helps to fill this information void by comparing the characteristics and behaviour patterns of equestrians, hikers, mountain bikers, and runners on a rail-trail in South Dakota, USA. Significant differences across these activity groups emerged. For example, compared to the other groups, equestrians tended to be older visitors who sought an appreciation of history and nature, almost always in the company of others. Runners, on the other hand, tended to be younger visitors who sought to ‘promote health and fitness’, much less frequently in the company of others. Management implications are discussed.

An exploratory study of attitudes toward tourism on American Indian reservations

Tourism development is widely considered a means by which the economies of American Indian reservations (AIRs) can be strengthened. Understanding attitudes toward tourism on AIRs is important to effectively plan for such development. This study contributed to the advancement of such an understanding, drawing upon data from intercept surveys of attendees at American Indian wacipis (pow-wows) in South Dakota, USA. It found that American Indian respondents were generally less sanguine about tourism on AIRs than non-American Indian respondents, that American Indian respondents generally supported tourism on AIRs but such support was by no means universal, that attitudes toward tourism on AIRs were only weakly related to demographic characteristics, that inter-tribal differences in such attitudes existed even among ethnically related Siouan tribes, and that American Indian respondents could be meaningfully disaggregated according to their attitude composites.