H. Leslie Furr

Predicting a Behavioral Profile for Pleasure Travelers on the Basis of Internet Use Segmentation

In an attempt to create a behavioral profile of pleasure travelers segmented based on Internet use, 5,319 pleasure travelers were interviewed. Initially, the respondents were classified as an Internet user or Internet nonuser based on whether or not they would use the Internet to seek travel-related information. Using discriminant analysis, chi square, and analysis of variance statistical techniques, a profile of demographic and behavioral characteristics was created. The results of this study suggest that people who use the Internet to search for travel-related information are likely to be people who are (a) college-educated owners of computers, (b) less than 45 years of age, (c) stay more often in commercial lodging establishments, and (d) spend more money each day while traveling. Implications for marketing managers and future research are discussed.

Seasonal Variation of Coastal Resort Visitors: Hilton Head Island

This study identified numerous significant differences in visitors to Hilton Head Island according to season. The most useful are length of stay according to accommodation type, attributes important in the decision to visit, and trip origin. The study suggests that approaching segmentation by seasonality is a useful practice.

Regional Contrasts in Consumers’ Attitudes and Behavior Following the BP Oil Spill

In this paper, we examine how consumers’ reactions to the British Petrolium (BP) oil spill and their attitudes about the Gulf of Mexico as a tourism destination differ as a function of the respondents’ geographic location of residence and their past travel behavior. A survey conducted with 540 travelers and tourists, which began three weeks following the successful capping of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, reveals that consumers’ reactions to the oil spill varied by geographic location and past travel behavior. In particular, consumers from the southeast region, when compared with the three other geographic regions we sampled, had more negative views regarding the oil spill on a number of dependent measures. We also found that individuals who traveled to Florida in the two years prior to the oil spill reported higher perceptions of environmental risk than those individuals who had not traveled to Florida during that same time frame.

Profiling Foreign Visitors in a Diverse Florida Community: Impact for Destination Planning

Travel and tourism contributes substantially to the economy in Florida, where 48.7 million people vacationed in 1998. Almost 8 million of these were foreigners (THCVA, Inc, 1999). In 1997 alone, Florida visitors spent over

Using the Internet as a Pleasure Travel Planning Tool: an Examination of the Sociodemographic and Behavioral Characteristics Among Internet Users and Nonusers

40 billion and tourism directly employed almost 800,000 Floridians (Florida Department of Revenue, 1998).