Understanding Customers in Tourism and Business Management

This essay discusses the importance of understanding customers in tourism and business management. It covers micro and macro aspects of consumer behaviour, Attitude Theory, and Consumer Culture Theory. Examples from Trailfinders and other companies are included. Course code and college/university are not mentioned.

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Understanding Customers

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Customers are people who purchases products and services in exchange for money or other
valuable considerations (Belanche, Casaló and Flavián, 2019). Consumer behaviour is termed to
a study of people, groups along with organisations addition to all activities that are related to
purchase, utilisation and disposal of commodities and services. Understanding customers is key
for endeavor of business. Successful organisations understand what customers want as well as
most effective manner to make products and services available. Once managers of company have
understanding about customer needs and wants, they use it for persuading potential along with
prospective customers which purchase from the entity is in best interests. In tourism industry,
key customer types are chooser, explorer, identity-seeker, communicator, activist and hence
forth. In tourism and business management, understanding customers is an indispensable element
in development of the field.
The essay highlights theories to understand micro as well as macro aspect of consumer
behaviour by including examples of industry practice from distinct organisations.
MAIN BODY
Consumer behaviour is said to study of people and company along with the ways they select
and use offerings. In tourism industry, understanding consumer behaviour assist marketers to
gain insights about what influences purchase decision of consumers. With this, marketers and
managers of company fill in gap in market addition to identify products which are required for
meeting customer satisfaction and products that became obsolete. For example, Trailfinders is a
travel company in UK that understands behaviour of travellers while they select particular
destination and driving factors which influences their decision to travel. Intrinsic consumer
behaviour reflects travellers look forward to next similar experience in moderate to long time
span, record higher enjoyment and satisfaction level (Kapoor, Khare and Abraham, 2019).
However, extrinsic behaviour shows that travellers or other consumers in the industry focuses on
passage of time, look forward to same experience in short time span and tend to be tensed for
performance that hinders relaxation and enjoyment. In aspect to tourism and business
management, it is essential for businesses to understand micro and macro aspects of consumer
behaviour. With this, travel agencies, operators and companies gain valuable insights about likes
and dislikes of various consumer types along with design efforts as per findings. The business
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world is highly competitive as well as entities which makes efforts to understand customers and
their behaviour wold be better equipped for offerings personalised products, services together
with customised solutions. A significant portion to understand customers is for business to know
what a customer buy for variant reasons that are emotional and logical. In tourism industry,
various companies, for example, Trafalgar, Collette, Great Value Vacations, Europamundo
Vacations and hence forth.
Micro aspects of consumer behaviour could be represented by behaviour of individual
decision maker. Understanding consumer behaviour at micro level helps organisations to learn
about immediate responses of consumers that impacts a business. To understand micro aspect of
consumer behaviour, Attitude Theory is used by organisations. Attitude theory says that
consumer behaviour is a learned predisposition to respond consistently favourable or
unfavourable manner for some object (Jung, Choi and Oh, 2020). At micro level, all consumers
hold attitude as they are useful. Attitudes of consumer enable businesses to determine quickly
and effortlessly that which behaviour to engage in or which to avoid in order to seek
profitability. In tourism businesses, Attitude Theory is used to analyse or gain information about
behavioural intentions for holiday packages or other tourism based services. For example,
marketers of Trailfinders apply Attitude Theory to gain insights about attitudes that underlies
formation and change of decision making to purchase offerings. As per the theory, attitudes of
types of consumers is specifically in relation to certain target object that includes person,
behaviour and object. Key components of the theory are affective component, cognitive
component and behavioural component. In Trailfinders, marketers analyse all these three
components so to understand behaviour of customers. Moreover, attitude of tourist for
destination is key for marketers as more positive attitude from tourists is significant for company
to bring satisfaction of target consumers. Attitudes of consumers could be seen as influential on
various processes including social, reducing cognitive dissonance and relating to values. It
results in benefiting a company to interact with target audiences and the world. Within tourism
company, when consumer’s attitudes such as cheerful, generous outlook and positive feelings,
managers translate them into favourable experiences.
Macro aspect of consumer behaviour is represented by behaviour involved with companies,
clients, markets, industries and competitors. It covers aspects of society and market. It bends
elements and aid marketers of company to understand purchase decision making process, at
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individually along with in groups. In a market system based on individual choices, consumers
influence what will be produced, what resources will be utilised for production and for whom it
needs to be produced (Boronat-Navarro and Pérez-Aranda, 2019). In tourism establishment, for
example, Trailfinders, considering macro aspects of consumer behaviour segments market
usefully and assess new market opportunities. It provides insights to company into aggregate
economic as well as social trends for predicting trends. Moreover, this understanding suggest
various ways for enhancing efficiency of market system along with make improvement in
wellbeing of citizens in society. It is cornerstone to understand customer behaviour at macro
level as it provides a path for long run success of organisational program, strategy or plan. For
instance, marketers of the tourism entity understand perspectives of different customers at macro
level so to assess trends addition to watching changes in buying patterns, both individually and in
groups, for selling offerings which target customers want in order to keep up with demand.
To understand macro aspects of consumer behaviour, managers of Trailfinders uses
Consumer culture theory which is study of choices and behaviours of consumption from social
addition to cultural point of view (Catulli, Cook and Potter, 2017). It is said to a family of
theoretical perspectives which addresses dynamic relationship among consumer actions, cultural
meaning addition to marketplace. With application of the theory, managers of Trailfinders drives
economic growth. It is because understanding different customers at macro level helps to
improve offerings and influencing people, individually and in groups, to spend more on products
or services that are produced in never ending cycle resulting to economic growth. Furthermore, it
enhances production of various tourism based services and employment that leads to wider
consumption. With this theory, the entity evaluates cultural dimensions and theoretical
perspectives in study about consumer behaviours and choices as per social and cultural side of
things that addresses dynamic relationships. Culture is sum total of learned knowledge, customs,
beliefs and ideas which regulate behaviour of member of specific society. As per the theory,
cultural system is combination of ideology, social structure and ecology which collectively help
in understand culture of customers. The theory benefits the tourism company to understand
consumer behaviour through examining how emotions, preferences as well as attitudes impacts
buying behaviour of consumer. Certain social factor comprising reference groups, role of
relatives and status and immediate family members in society assist consumers to learn from
parents and relatives that become culture to make purchase decision. Impacts of culture of
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working of the tourism company are so natural and ingrained that it impacts on behaviour which
are rarely noted. For example, culture of consumer offer direction, order as well as guidance to
members of society in all stages to solve problems. By understanding culture of various customer
groups, managers and marketers of Trailfinders devises travel and accommodation packages to
meet needs and improve living standards. Within the tourism establishment, wide range of
measurement techniques are opted in order to study culture and build programme that meet needs
of consumers of society and market.
CONCLUSION
From the essay, it is concluded that consumer behaviour is defined to a study of people,
teams and businesses in the manner they carry out activities for purchase, use and dispose
offerings. Understanding customers is essential for businesses and it assist in gathering
information about what are wants and demands of customers as well as effective way to make
organisational commodities or services available. When information about customers are
collected, managers use it for persuading customers that buying from them is in best preferences.
Micro perspectives of consumer behaviour comprise of understanding customers in order to
assists a company accomplishing its goals. At same time, macro level of customer behaviour
collectively influences social together with economic situations in whole society. Attitude
Theory is one of theory through which managers understand micro aspect of behaviour of
consumers. In addition, Consumer Culture Theory is theory used by managers to understand
macro aspects of consumer behaviour.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Belanche, D., Casaló, L. V. and Flavián, C., 2019. Artificial Intelligence in FinTech:
understanding robo-advisors adoption among customers. Industrial Management &
Data Systems.
Boronat-Navarro, M. and Pérez-Aranda, J. A., 2019. Consumers’ perceived corporate social
responsibility evaluation and support: The moderating role of consumer
information. Tourism Economics, 25(4), pp.613-638.
Catulli, M., Cook, M. and Potter, S., 2017. Consuming use orientated product service systems: A
consumer culture theory perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 141, pp.1186-
1193.
Jung, H. J., Choi, Y. J. and Oh, K. W., 2020. Influencing factors of Chinese consumers’ purchase
intention to sustainable apparel products: Exploring consumer “attitude–behavioral
intention” gap. Sustainability, 12(5), p.1770.
Kapoor, A., Khare, A. K. and Abraham, N., 2019. E-Disloyalty: Understanding Indian
Customers’ Uncertainty to Repurchase Online. International Journal of Advanced
Research in Management, 10(3).
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