Patrick Legohérel

Market segmentation in the tourism industry and consumers' spending : what about direct expenditures?

Abstract Despite the unabated pace of globalisation and the incessant flow of tourists to multiple tourist destinations, there is little attention paid by tourist operators and hospitality managers to the segmentation of holiday makers based on their distinctive spending habits for revenue maximization. Segmenting holiday makers according to their levels of expenditure is an important factor in developing comprehensive marketing strategies since travellers who decide to spend a vacation in the same area and in the same period might spend their money in very different ways. This paper uses the CHAID technique to examine direct as well as daily tourist expenditures of holiday makers in Hong Kong to define market segments (particularly, the big spenders). The results obtained confirm that CHAID is a relatively flexible technique to use and can be employed as a precursor to a more parametric approach.

Culture, Time Orientation, and Exploratory Buying Behavior

ABSTRACT This article provides researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of how consumers behave within a cross-cultural context. Literature often focuses on culture per se, but to understand consumer behavior better in a cross-cultural context, some studies have considered variables other than the key component elements of culture, encompassing families friends, society, etc. This research focuses on two slightly different variables: the perception of time and exploratory buying behavior. Within this context the first section of the paper validates the Time Style Scale and the Exploratory Buying Behavior Scale within a cross-cultural context. Results show that the Temporal Styles Scale (Usunier and Valette-Florence, 1994) is validated when using the entire dataset as well as data from an English version of the instrument. However, data collected from the Chinese version of the questionnaire does not fit the model well. The Exploratory Buying Behavior Scale (Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 1996) can be reduced to four exploratory acquisition of products (EAP) and three exploratory information seeking (EIS) items. Data collected from both language versions are considered as fitting the model adequately. The second section of the research examines the relation between elements of culture, time orientation, exploratory buying behavior, and consumer behavior. Results of a canonical analysis show that the group of variables associated with culture are best at discriminating the phenomenon. However, as far as the variables are concerned, the exploratory product-acquisition factor has a more important role than some variables associated with culture.

Effect on tipping of barman drawing a sun on the bottom of customers' checks.

Previous research has demonstrated that a pleasant drawing (a smiling face) on a restaurant bill increased the number of tips left by clients. A similar experiment was carried out using a drawing of the sun since it is known that tips increase on sunny days. The experiment was carried out in local bars and involved clients who have ordered an espresso coffee. Analysis showed that the drawing of the sun led clients to leave a tip more frequently than when this drawing is not present. The size of the tip left was also higher. The hypothesis of the creation of a positive frame of mind by this stimulus is discussed.

Numerical encoding and odd‐ending prices

The practice of pricing with numbers ending in nine (“nine‐ending”) has been little studied. It now seems well established that, under certain conditions, the practice of such pricing strategies has a particular effect on sales, especially inciting the customer to buy products that are more expensive. The research design for explaining such an effect would depend on the price encoding mechanisms, namely, the emphasis of focusing attention, which decreases when reading from left to right, leading to only partial memorization of the price. This would favour the leftmost digits, thus leading to errors of evaluation or estimation of the starting price. A new experiment was carried out to test this possibility. Subjects had to estimate the discount rate of products in a sale, according to whether the starting price was a “rounded” figure or “odd‐ending”. Assuming the first digit of the price is memorized, we might expect that a round starting price leads to an overestimation of the amount of the offered discount. The results provide evidence in support of this hypothesis, enabling us to gain a more accurate knowledge of the processes used for estimating the starting price.

Personality characteristics, attitude toward risk, and decisional orientation of the small business entrepreneur: a study of hospitality managers

Decision choice, risk attitude, and uncertainty have all been developed in numerous research works. A large amount of literature has been dedicated to decisional orientation within the context of firm management. Most of the articles and theories present choice behavior as rather rational and exclusively geared toward business. Few authors highlight the effects of individual characteristics and the influence of psychological factors on choice behavior within the context of managerial decisions. The first objective of this article is to present the literature based on the managers’individual characteristics. In the second part of the article, we study the influence of individual characteristics on the decision making of entrepreneurs in the tourism industry. Research data were obtained from a survey of hotel/restaurant managers of small- and medium-sized firms.

Selling Tourism on the Internet: Analysis of the Balance of Power Between Seller and Consumer During Information Exchange and Negotiation

Abstract Business on the Internet is experiencing rapid development. Numerous companies in the tourism industry are setting up sites on the “World Wide Web” in order to create virtual shopping, to promote their product lines and to offer a service or to make direct sales. However, the exploitation of this new communication medium works regardless of the consequences of such an evolution on consumer behavior, in particular during the phase of commercial research and negotiation. This article is an analysis of the balance of power between seller and consumer within the framework of Computer-Mediated Communication. The result of this commercial research will make it possible to assess the different degrees of influence on retailers that are competing within the framework of network communication. Recommendations regarding the development of direct sales on the Web will be made.

Revenue Management: Progress, Challenges, and Research Prospects

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the main developments of revenue management (RM) over the past decade and discusses RM challenges and research prospects. It examines nine notable emerging themes: total hotel RM, big data analytics, distribution, rate integrity, RM and marketing strategies alignment, social media impacts on RM, RM system, applications of RM in non-traditional service sectors, and RM education and training. We argue that these developments have far-reaching implications for real-world RM practice and anticipate that the topic areas will continue to be popular for hospitality and tourism research in the foreseeable future.

Divergence in Variety Seeking: An Exploratory Study Among International Travelers in Asia

ABSTRACT Variety seeking is a tendency in consumer behavior in which the consumer alternates between different makes of the same item in the quest for diversity. Variety seeking and exploratory behaviors help explain tourists’ consumption behavior and choice-making methods. Some studies have focused on the choice of food, restaurants, theme parks, travel activities, or destinations, but only a few have taken place within an international context. In this study, the influence of variety seeking and exploratory buying on travelers’ consumption behavior within an international context is analyzed. In essence, Asian travelers are compared with Western travelers. Several factors, which help explain divergence in variety seeking, are included in the analysis. The results demonstrate that variety seeking and an exploratory tendency have a significant relationship with travelers’ consumption behavior (for both Asian and Western travelers). In general, customers who have a high tendency for variety seeking are less loyal; however, there is no discernible difference between Asian and Western tourists in this regard.

Seniors’ Motivations and Perceived Risks: A Cross-Cultural Study

ABSTRACT This research reports on the findings of a comparative study of senior consumers from a major European (French) market and a key Asian (Chinese) one. The study concentrates on the tourism market regarding the growth and importance of this industry both for European and Asian markets. Travel motivations and perceived risks were of particular interest to understand consumer behavior, with scales being tested and utilizing survey data collected from 300 French and 264 Chinese seniors. The study reveals that two reliable Western scales could be adapted to the Chinese and to the French cultures. Second, it shows significant differences between Chinese and French senior consumers in terms of motivations and risks perceptions. Particularly, Chinese seniors are described by a past-oriented motivation, linked to nostalgia, and patriotism, which differentiates them from the Western seniors. This article provides a contribution regarding a major issue in comparative and cross-cultural studies: the use of a unique and culturally adapted scale. Two scales have been tested and showed to be suitable for marketing studies in four cultures. Second, this study provides interesting information on a European and an Asian senior market. Knowing that the current aging of the global population presents an exciting opportunity for growth for several industries, these results are of particular interest for international marketers.

The tourism Web acceptance model A study of intention to book tourism products online

The tourism Web acceptance model (T-WAM) is a model of consumers’ acceptance of information technology designed for e-tourism. The model aims to explain intention to book tourism products online better than other models do. Results from a survey collected from 389 Tunisian consumers show that the T-WAM is more robust than other models and theories (e.g. technology acceptance model, theory of planned behavior (TPB), decomposed TPB model, and flow theory) to explain behavioral intention in the context of e-tourism. The explained variance of intention to book is about 51% (R 2 = 50.6%). Results are discussed in detail, and recommendations, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.