Marketing regional tourism: How better to target and address community attitudes to tourism

Abstract

In the past two decades there have been more than 70 published articles that have segmented tourist samples into clusters. The principal aims of such research are to understand tourist characteristics better; to identify key variables that predict tourist behaviour; to assess the value of tourism to an area; to provide knowledge to help develop facilities in designated areas; and to allow tourism marketing to plan strategies such as promotion and product development. In contrast, researchers have appeared to assume that the host population is homogeneous and has a uniform response to an increase in tourist numbers and to future sustainable tourism within the community. This research study used multivariate analyses such as factor analysis and cluster analysis to segment the host community into four distinct cluster groups on the basis of their positive and negative attitudes. Demographic variables constituted the cluster base. These four cluster groups differed from each other on gender ratio, age, life-cycle stage, education, migration status, occupation and current involvement with tourism. This research highlights differing attitudes present in various community groups, and explores implications for the tourist industry.