Tourism Consumer Behaviour and Insight

Tourism Consumer Behaviour
and Insight (L5)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Investigating the factors influencing the consumer behaviour and attitude within tourism
industry........................................................................................................................................3
P2 Changes in consumer trends due to the impact of digital technology....................................4
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Stages of consumer decision-making journey and mapping path to purchase.......................5
P4 Importance to marketers for mapping a path to purchase.......................................................6
LO3..................................................................................................................................................8
P5 Comparing and contrasting the key differences between B2B and B2C within tourism
industry........................................................................................................................................8
P6 Different approaches to market research and methods of research used for understanding
the decision-making process........................................................................................................8
LO4..................................................................................................................................................9
P7 Evaluating how marketers can influence the different stages of tourism decision-making
process..........................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Consumers are considered to be the key part of every business organization surrounding
which all the enterprise related activities are revolved. Thus, it becomes essential to recognise
and effectively understand the factors having potential to affect the buying decisions of the
consumers. This report is in context of Thomas Cook Group plc which is large travel company
founded in 2007 and is headquartered in London, UK. This reports presents about the various
stages of consumers decision-making along with the factors affecting the ultimate decisions. In
addition to this, it states about the importance of mapping process in the consumer decision-
making in the context to tourism. It also covers the presentation of various models and theories
and difference between the B2C and B2B approaches. At last, various factor impacting the user
decision-making process is determined.
LO1
P1 Investigating the factors influencing the consumer behaviour and attitude within tourism
industry
The core thing which is having a major impact over the consumer behaviour is the goods
and services which is being offered. It becomes essential to identify and examine the various
groups involving the factors such as the cultural, social, personal and so forth. Along with this, it
also helps in determining the factors which are having direct impact on the consumer buying
behaviour.
Cultural: The major factor that contributed or have a crucial role in identifying the wants
and behaviour of the clients is the culture. It mainly involves the norms, learned values and
symbols of the society which is basically transmitted through the way of language and symbol
(Chin and et.al., 2018). Pertaining to tourism industry, the culture which is being followed by the
people influence their decision and attitude towards the travel and tourism. For example, the
culture followed in India is completely different from what is followed in other nations. This
factor has a great impact over the consumer behaviour and attitude in the context of tourism
industry.
Social: It refers to the permanent division in the society where members share the same
values and interest. The buying behaviour of the people is affected by the class to which they
belong or to which they aspire. Along with that, the changing trends has also resulted into

affected the needs of the consumers. For example, the Savoy Hotel focus on upper class to offer
their services
Personal: The personal factor, basically the personality affects the consumers behaviour
and perception. This factor influences the types and brand of product which is being purchased,
for instance, a consumer is willing to have a relaxed and exciting holiday with lot of facilities but
at the lower cost which reflects the one of the personality of the consumer.
Psychological factors: The attitude of the consumers towards a particular brand and the
way it affects the consumer behaviour is an important aspect of psychological factors (Kashif,
Zarkada and Ramayah, 2018). It is mainly formed by the experience acquired by people which
has a long-lasting impact over the consumers.
It can be stated from the above that the stated factors are having a significant impact over
the consumer behaviour and attitude as it keeps on changing with change in time and emerging
changes in the business environment. These factors are having the potential to drive changes
within the tourism industry and thus, it becomes essential for the organizations like the Thomas
Cook to take account of it in the business operations.
P2 Changes in consumer trends due to the impact of digital technology
The emergence of the latest technology has resulted into change in the consumers pattern
of consumption. The change in technology and the emergence of digital technology has resulted
into bringing a million of things at the finger tips. In respect to the tourism industry, the easy
available of the view of the various hotels and tourism places has made it easy for the consumers
in effectively evaluating and comparing the choices which is available in the respected field. The
consumers nowadays can access the content all around the globe along with reviewing the
experiences being shared by someone else (Ortiz, 2020). This type of behaviour has resulted into
promotion of the technological advancement and development. The tourism industry has also
upgraded with respect to the implementation of the latest technology and is also having a great
impact over the tourism industry. For instance, once the luggage is picked up and consumer
leave home but there are mainly 2 types of attitude which stands out. One is the trend is to go out
for a holiday but along with staying attached with the world with the help of smartphones with
the fear of missing out what is happening on social networks. The companies are taking
advantage of such trend in order to continuously enhancing the relationship with their customers.