General Overview

There are various trends and issues that affect tourism and more constantly arising. Examples include individuals’ culture, attitudes, behaviors, and numerous others. Travel is an international phenomenon, which means people of different cultures, as well as other characteristics, will interact.

Culture

Culture certainly affects tourism in various ways, especially international travel. People may have different meanings of culture, different ways of greeting others and communication styles, and other characteristics. Hofstede Insights (2022, November 15) defines culture as “The programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group” (para. 1). This definition implies there can be national and organizational culture, as well as potentially other ways to develop a culture.

Hofstede originally developed five cultural dimensions (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). First, is “Power Distance” which essentially says power of members of society or institutions is not equal. The second dimension is “Uncertainty Avoidance”, which is if someone feels threatened by a situation they will avoid it. Third is “Individualism vs. Collectivism”, which represents individuals looking after themselves and family (Individualism), while Collectivism is looking after collective groups. Fourth is “Masculinity vs. Femininity” where Masculinity represents “success, money, and things” (p. 420). Femininity is described as “caring for others and the quality of life” (p. 420). There is a fifth dimension called “Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation” with Long-Term representing a culture who “maintain traditions and norms over change”, while Short-Term accept societal change (Morrison et al., 2018).

A sixth dimension, “Indulgence vs. Restraint”, which was added to the cultural dimensions later most certainly affects travel (Hsu & Huang, 2016; Zhang et al., 2019), especially international travel. Hsu and Huang (2016) suggest indulgence necessary to travel. Zhang et al. (2019) found that countries with indulgence among the population are more likely to attract international visitors. Wiggin et al. (2019) found that unsatisfied curiosity in consumers leads to indulgence, which for international travel could mean learning about other cultures. The cost of international travel can be considered indulgence.

Time

There are generally three types of time people have:

• Maintenance – obligations such as work, school, household maintenance, taking care of children
• Work – this includes school
• Leisure – this is discretionary time after maintenance and work time – focus on oneself and enjoyment (vacations)

Just because someone has available leisure time does not necessarily mean they will travel. Obviously the need to have the money to travel, which is discretionary after other obligations (e.g., rent/mortgage, insurance, car payment, groceries, tuition). The third requirement for someone to travel is desire. If someone does not have all three they are not going to travel.

Sociodemographics

Various sociodemographic variables influence tourism. First peoples available time to travel changes throughout their life. School and work require much of peoples’ time, limiting the opportunity to travel, while retired people have plenty of time to travel, if they have money and desire. The type of activities people pursue also changes over time. For example, when kids are involved travel is more likely to revolve around them. World Family Travel (2021, January 7) suggests travel is the most critical part of children’s’ education. Once the children are out of their parents’ house and on their own, some empty nesters travel full-time (Constable, 2022, March 10).

Obviously income is an important variable. Disposable income is what is left after taxes are taken out of someone’s paycheck. Then, they need to take care of financial obligations as mentioned in the previous section to reach what is left as discretionary income. Tourism competes for discretionary income as someone might purchase a new televisions, computer, put the money in savings, or any number of other possibilities.

In terms of gender, Maume (2006) found that work obligations and job security leads to shorter vacations for men and for women their concern for the success of family increases the number of vacation days that are unused. Gender differences have also been found in importance of stopping at a visitor information center to purchase souvenirs, with females being more likely than males (Draper, 2018).

Morrison et al. (2018) suggest research has found that the more education tourists have the more likely they are to participate in outdoor (e.g., tennis, golf) and interpretive (e.g., museums, plays).

Rather than looking at individual demographic variables, destinations should consider life cycles. For example young professions, presence of children, and empty nesters, along with barriers to leisure/travel. According to Morrison et al. (2018) there are three types of barriers to travel:

• Intrapersonal – within the individual (e.g., no motivation, no desire)
• Interpersonal – between people such as family (e.g., lack of agreement of the destination)
• Structural – time, money, scheduling conflicts

Psychographic Characteristics

Personality traits also play a role in tourism as it predicts behavior (Yoo & Gretzel, 2011). It is generally commonly know that psychocentrics are more reserved, less adventurous than allocentric people are more likely to take an adventurous vacation. The COVID-19 pandemic changed tourism, even after the lock downs. As might be expected, allocentric like personalities were more likely to travel during the pandemic compared to psychocentric (Talwar et al., 2022).

Perception and Destination Image

Even prior to visiting a tourism destination, tourists develop a perception or image of the destination. This can be from a variety of sources of information (e.g., magazines, book about the destination, television, advertisement, friends and/or relatives, the news, CVB website and/or e-newsletter). When examining positive attributes of a destination, research has shown visitors have a higher level of agreement with positive adjectives of the destination compared to potential visitors (Draper, 2015). There are three components to destination image (Morrison et al., 2018):

• Attribute Based – Holistic: range from very specific characteristics of a destination (e.g., attractions, weather) to very general such as an overall vague description
• Functional – Psychological: range from very specific or tangible (e.g., cost of visiting the destination) to much less tangible (e.g., safety)
• Common – Unique: range from similarities to other destinations to being a very unique destination

There is also affective image, which is one’s personal feelings about a destination (Santana & Gosling, 2018), primarily using adjectives to describe a destination. A number of studies have examined affective image using bipolar scales such as pleasant to unpleasant, exciting to gloomy (e.g., Baloglu & McLeary, 1999).

There is consideration of tourists’ image of themselves (i.e., self-image), which are associated with products they purchase (Sirgy et al., 1997). Tourists tend to visit tourism destinations that are congruent with their self-image. Research examines this by asking a series of questions measuring visitors and non-visitors level of agreement to to a series of items about their self-image and the image of a specific destination (e.g., “The typical tourists to [destination] reflect the type of person I am”) (Maghrifani et al., 2022).

The Future of Tourism

Tourism is constantly changing because of various things. For one technology changes cause changes to tourism.  First technology keeps changing and less than one year ago Tech Digest Correspondent (2022, July 14) identified three specific ways. First, mobile technology is used in all facets of travel from accommodations to airlines to restaurants to museums to heritage sites. Robots are now working in hotels as concierges, hotels as servers, and even in airports helping human security. Third, augmented reality is used at tourist attractions for virtual tours and provide opportunities to experience things like viewing the Roman temple of Baalbek as it was in 215 A.D. and currently.

Baratti (2023, January 2) suggests there will be major changes in tourism throughout 2023. Specific to the U.S. the State Department plans to start a program for tourists to renew passports online to be more efficient. However, it is expected that the time to receive the physical passport will be the same as those that are mailed (6-9 weeks).

References

Baloglu, S., & McCleary, K. W. (1999). A model of destination image formation. Annals of Tourism Research, 26(4), 868-897.

Baratti, L. (2023, January 2). Major changes that will affect American travelers in 2023. Travel Pulse. https://www.travelpulse.com/news/impacting-travel/major-changes-that-will-affect-american-travelers-in-2023.html?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic

Constable, K. (2022, March 10). After all our kids left our home, we decided to sell everything and travel full time. As empty nesters we get to enjoy life, too. Insider Events. https://www.insider.com/couple-sold-everything-and-now-travels-as-empty-nesters-2022-3

Draper, J. (2015). Comparing destination image of visitors, potential visitors, and residents. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), 12(1/2), 137-151.

Draper, J. (2018). Applying importance-performance analysis to services of a visitor information center. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(1), 84-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1467358415627300

Heydari, A., Laroche, M., Paulin, M., & Richard, M.-P. (2021). Hofstede’s individual-level indulgence dimension: Scale development and validation. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102640

Hofstede, G., & Bond, M. H. (1984). The need for synergy among cross-cultural studies. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 15(4), 417-433.

Hofstede Insights. (2022, November 15). What do we mean by culture? https://news.hofstede-insights.com/news/what-do-we-mean-by-culture

Hsu, C., & Huang, S. (Sam). (2016). Reconfiguring Chinese cultural values and their tourism implications. Tourism Management (1982), 54, 230–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.11.011

Maghrifani, D., Liu, F., & Sneddon, J. (2022). Understanding potential and repeat visitors’ travel intentions: The roles of travel motivations, destination image, and visitor image congruity. Journal of Travel Research, 61(5), 1121-1137. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472875211018508

Maume, D. J. (2006). Gender differences in taking vacation time. Work and Occupation, 33(2), 161-190. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888405284568

Morrison, A. M., Lehto, X. Y., & Day, J. G. (2018). The tourism system (8th ed.). Kendall Hunt.

Santana, L. D., & Gosling, M. S. (2018). Dimensions of image: A model of destination image formation. Tourism Analysis, 23(3), 303-322.

Talwar, S., Srivastava, S., Sakashita, M., Islam, N., & Dhir, A. (2022). Personality and travel intentions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: An artificial neural network (ANN) approach. Journal of Business Research, 142, 400-411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.002

Tech Digest Correspondent. (2022, July 14). 3 technology trends that are shaping the future of travel. Tech Digest. https://www.techdigest.tv/2022/07/3-technology-trends-that-are-shaping-the-future-of-travel.html?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic

Wiggin, K. L., Reimann, M., & Jain, S. P. (2019). Curiosity tempts indulgence. Journal of Consumer Research, 45, 1194-1212. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy055

Yoo, K.-H., & Gretzel, U. (2011). Influence of personality on travel-related consumer-generated media creation. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 609-621. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563210001226

World Family Travel. (2021, January 7). Why do people travel? World Travel Family Travel Blog. https://worldtravelfamily.com/why-do-people-travel/

Zhang, Y., Li, X. R., & Wu, T. S. (2019). The impacts of cultural values on bilateral international tourist flows: A panel data gravity model. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(967-981). https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2017.1345870