Journal of Hospitality Application and Research

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Market Segmentation by Preferred Destination Attributes - An Empirical Study on Religious Tourists


Affiliations
1 SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
2 Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU) Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


Purpose: The paper examines the application of segmenting religious tourists based on destination attributes, which is predicted assuming that every tourist product appeals to tourists in different manner. Tourists visit religious destinations for sacred inspirations to satisfy various needs related to cultural or recreational factors. Hence, the main objective of the present paper is to form clusters by profiling the segments of religious tourists based on their expectations related to destination attributes of religious cities using cluster analysis. The study aims to understand tourist behavior by discretely identifying market segments using conjoint analysis, to identify the destination attributes relevant for each cluster defined during cluster analysis. Methodology: To address these research gaps, the study involved exploratory research where the preliminary study was conducted adopting focus group discussions that helped identify various factors and their attribute levels. The study was validated through statistical tests. After the preliminary study, exploratory data was collected through field study including 211 questionnaires that were related to behavioral and demographic information of the tourists. This study incorporates the techniques of conjoint, cluster analysis and binary logistic regression to segment the tourist markets in India. Findings: From the overall sample of the prospective tourists, the most preferred combination was, Tour operator (viz. information), religious rituals (viz. Divine goal), Family safety (viz. security), Ashram (viz. accommodation), Government officials (viz. Complaint redressal) and cultural music (viz. Recreational activities). Socio-demographic variables, Gender and marital status had significant impact on religious tourist attribute preferences. Subsequently, destination attributes and relevant demographic variables resulted in formation of 2 distinct segments of tourist visitors. The resultant clusters were further divided into sub-groups by adopting a common sense approach. This approach helped in revealing religious tourist clusters based on their activities, motivations and preferred tourist destination attributes, which can provide a vast scope for the development of organized tourist destinations. Implications: This empirical analysis should help in the management of the religious tourist destinations to strive in making these travel places memorable, welcoming and fostering an image filled with experiences and interactions. This will help in facilitating the marketers and the government in developing and designing marketing campaigns for the specific target segment. Identifying these destination attributes would help marketers in influencing tourists post visit behavior towards various tourist destinations. Originality: This research asserts that the tourism market is segmented and proposes using destination based attributes by adopting conjoint and cluster analysis as one means if profiling and identifying segments. The paper evaluates the preferences and the choice set of the religious tourists to understand the most influential characteristics of tourist attitude towards a religious tourist destination.


Keywords

Religious Tourist, Tourism, Conjoint and Cluster Analysis, Destination Based Attributes, Segmentation
Subscription Login to verify subscription
User
Notifications
Font Size


  • Aaker, D. A., Kumar, V., & Day, G. S. (2008). Market research. John Wiley & Sons.

  • Andriotis, K. (2009). Sacred site experience: A phenomenological study. Annals of Tourism Research, 36(1), 64-84.

  • Aggarwal, A. K., Guglani, M., & Goel, R. K. (2008). Spiritual & yoga tourism: A case study on experience of foreign tourists visiting Rishikesh, India.

  • Akaah, I., & Korgaonkar, P. K. (1988). A conjoint investigation of the relative importance of risk relievers in direct marketing. Journal of Advertising Research.

  • Pizam, A., Chon, K. S., & Mansfeld, Y. (1999). Consumer behavior in travel and tourism. Psychology Press.

  • Collins-Kreiner, N. (2010). The geography of pilgrimage and tourism: Transformations and implications for applied geography. Applied Geography, 30(1), 153-164.

  • Feather, P., Hellerstein, D., & Tomasi, T. (1995). A discrete-count model of recreation demand. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 29, 214-227.

  • Green, P. E. (1974). On the design of choice experiments involving multifactor alternatives. Journal of Consumer Research, 1(2), 61-68.

  • Green, P. E., Krieger, A. M., & Wind, Y. (2001). Thirty years of conjoint analysis: Reflections and prospects. Interfaces, 31(3), S56- S73.

  • Gupta, K., & Gulla, A. (2010). Internet deployment in the spiritual tourism industry: The case of Vaishno Devi Shrine. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 2(5), 507-519.

  • Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., Anderson, R. E., & Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis. Uppersaddle River.

  • Huertas-Garcia, R., Laguna García, M., & Consolación, C. (2014). Conjoint analysis of tourist choice of hotel attributes presented in travel agent brochures. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(1), 65-75.

  • Jackowski, A., & Smith, V. (1992). Polish pilgrim - Tourists. Annals of Tourism Research, 19, 92-106.

  • Jauhari, V., & Sanjeev, G. M. (2010). Managing customer experience for spiritual and cultural tourism: An overview. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 2(5), 467-476.

  • Kim, J. H. (2014). The antecedents of memorable tourism experiences: The development of a scale to measure the destination attributes associated with memorable experiences. Tourism Management, 44, 34-45.

  • Kuhfeld, W. F., Tobias, R. D., & Garratt, M. (1994). Efficient experimental designs with marketing applications. Journal of Marketing Research, 31, 545-557.

  • Lickorish, L. J., & Kershaw, A. G. (1996). The travel trade. In Vuconic, B. (Ed.) Tourism and Religion, (pp. 79- 81). Oxford: Pergamon.

  • Lindberg, K., Dellaert, B. G., & Rassing, C. R. (1999). Resident tradeoffs: A choice modeling approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 26(3), 554-569.

  • Louviere, J., & Timmermans, H. (1990). Stated preference and choice models applied to recreation research: A review. Leisure Sciences, 12(1), 9-32.

  • Murphy, P. E. (1985). Tourism. A community approach. New York-London: Methuen.

  • Mukherjee, S., Adhikari, A., & Datta, B. (2018). Quality of tourism destination - A scale development. Journal of Indian Business Research, 10(1), 70-100.

  • Nolan, M. L., & Nolan, S. (1992). Religious sites as tourism attractions in Europe. Annals of Tourism Research, 19, 68-78.

  • Olsen, D. H. (2013). A scalar comparison of motivations and expectations of experience within the religious tourism market. International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 1(1), p. 5.

  • Olsen, D. H., & Timothy, D. J. (2006). Tourism and religious journeys. In Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys (pp. 17-38). Routledge.

  • Phukan, H., Rahman, Z., & Devdutt, P. (2012). Emergence of spiritual tourism in India. International Journal of Marketing and Technology, 2(4), p. 300.

  • Rinschede, G. (1992). Forms of religious tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 19, 51-67.

  • Shinde, K. A. (2010). Entrepreneurship and indigenous enterpreneurs in religious tourism in India. International Journal of Tourism Research, 12(5), 523-535.

  • Smith, V. L. (1992). Introduction the quest in guest. Annals of Tourism Research, 19, 1-17.

  • Suh, Y. K., & McAvoy, L. (2005). Preferences and trip expenditures - A conjoint analysis of visitors to Seoul, Korea. Tourism Management, 26(3), 325-333.

  • Tribe, J. (2009). Philosophical issues in tourism. Channel View Publications

  • Tripathi, S. N., & Siddiqui, M. H. (2010). An empirical study of tourist preferences using conjoint analysis. International Journal of Business Science & Applied Management (IJBSAM), 5(2), 1-16.

  • Turner, V. (1973). The center out there: Pilgrim’s goal. History of Religions, 12(3), 191-230.

  • Varela Mallou, J., Picón Prado, E., & Braña Tobío, T. (2004). Segmentation of the Spanish domestic tourism market. Psicothema, 16(1).

  • Xin, S., & Yang, Z. (2017). A measure of tourism experience for spiritual tourists: Scale development and validation. 5th Annual International Conference on Tourism and Hospitality Research (THOR) (pp. 26-31).


Abstract Views: 203

PDF Views: 0




  • Market Segmentation by Preferred Destination Attributes - An Empirical Study on Religious Tourists

Abstract Views: 203  |  PDF Views: 0

Authors

Mallika Srivastava
SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Semila Fernandes
Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU) Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Abstract


Purpose: The paper examines the application of segmenting religious tourists based on destination attributes, which is predicted assuming that every tourist product appeals to tourists in different manner. Tourists visit religious destinations for sacred inspirations to satisfy various needs related to cultural or recreational factors. Hence, the main objective of the present paper is to form clusters by profiling the segments of religious tourists based on their expectations related to destination attributes of religious cities using cluster analysis. The study aims to understand tourist behavior by discretely identifying market segments using conjoint analysis, to identify the destination attributes relevant for each cluster defined during cluster analysis. Methodology: To address these research gaps, the study involved exploratory research where the preliminary study was conducted adopting focus group discussions that helped identify various factors and their attribute levels. The study was validated through statistical tests. After the preliminary study, exploratory data was collected through field study including 211 questionnaires that were related to behavioral and demographic information of the tourists. This study incorporates the techniques of conjoint, cluster analysis and binary logistic regression to segment the tourist markets in India. Findings: From the overall sample of the prospective tourists, the most preferred combination was, Tour operator (viz. information), religious rituals (viz. Divine goal), Family safety (viz. security), Ashram (viz. accommodation), Government officials (viz. Complaint redressal) and cultural music (viz. Recreational activities). Socio-demographic variables, Gender and marital status had significant impact on religious tourist attribute preferences. Subsequently, destination attributes and relevant demographic variables resulted in formation of 2 distinct segments of tourist visitors. The resultant clusters were further divided into sub-groups by adopting a common sense approach. This approach helped in revealing religious tourist clusters based on their activities, motivations and preferred tourist destination attributes, which can provide a vast scope for the development of organized tourist destinations. Implications: This empirical analysis should help in the management of the religious tourist destinations to strive in making these travel places memorable, welcoming and fostering an image filled with experiences and interactions. This will help in facilitating the marketers and the government in developing and designing marketing campaigns for the specific target segment. Identifying these destination attributes would help marketers in influencing tourists post visit behavior towards various tourist destinations. Originality: This research asserts that the tourism market is segmented and proposes using destination based attributes by adopting conjoint and cluster analysis as one means if profiling and identifying segments. The paper evaluates the preferences and the choice set of the religious tourists to understand the most influential characteristics of tourist attitude towards a religious tourist destination.


Keywords


Religious Tourist, Tourism, Conjoint and Cluster Analysis, Destination Based Attributes, Segmentation

References