While many different typologies have been proposed, the following simplified framework is often used as a summary of key categories from the most influential typologies. To some extent, this framework is similar to the earlier distinctions made between explorers, travelers, and tourists; it divides tourists into four broad types based on factors such as the purpose of travel and the type of experience sought.2
The drifter occupies one end of the spectrum. Drifters are tourists who likely do not consider themselves tourists. Like explorers from an earlier era, this category of tourist may be characterized as a pioneer who is the first to “discover” new and developing destinations. They seek out these destinations in an effort to avoid other tourists. Such places may have little in the way of a dedicated tourism infrastructure or tourism services. As a result, these tourists may stay in local guesthouses or private homes, use local transportation, shop at local markets, and eat at local restaurants and kitchens. Whether it is out of interest—or necessity, given the nature of these destinations—drifters immerse themselves in the local culture. For some, this is a process of education and self-exploration. For others, it is about doing something different, something not usually done.
The explorer bears resemblance to the earlier definition of a traveler. This category of tourist may have motivations for travel other than simply diversion, whether education, religious enlightenment, mental or physical well-being, or other specific types of experiences at the destination. These tourists look for unusual types of experiences and greater contact with the local population than just interacting with the people who hold service positions in the tourism industry, such as front desk clerks, restaurant servers, or housekeeping and maintenance staff. Explorers typically make their own travel arrangements and rely on a combination of both the tourism infrastructure and the local infrastructure. For example, these tourists may arrive at the destination by the same means as other categories of tourists, but instead of taking a tour bus or hiring a private taxi to explore the destination, they may take the local bus (figure 2.2).
Figure 2.2. This “explorer” is waiting for Bus Éireann in Trim, Ireland. Although Trim Castle can be visited on guided traveling tours and day trips, he preferred utilizing the public transportation infrastructure and having the freedom to choose his experiences instead of a pre-packaged alternative. (Source: Carolyn Nelson)
In this typology, the traditional “tourist” category is divided into two different types. The next type along the continuum is the individual mass tourist. For these tourists, the primary motivation is typically some form of relaxation, recreation, or diversion, and they have some desire for things that are familiar and comfortable. They are generally dependent on the tourism infrastructure for getting to and staying at the destination, and they may use tourism industry services for at least part of their trip, such as taking a guided tour at the destination. However, these tourists are also interested in having experiences at the destination that would not be available to them in their home environment, and they will seek the opportunity to explore the destination, albeit in a relatively safe manner.
Finally, the organized mass tourist occupies the position at the opposite end of the continuum. These tourists are primarily interested in diversion and escaping the boredom or repetition of daily life. They place a high emphasis on rest and relaxation and enjoying themselves with good food and/or entertainment. These tourists are less interested in unique experiences of place and are more likely to travel to destinations that are familiar or have characteristics that are familiar. Therefore, even if they travel to a foreign destination, they will stay in recognized brand name (i.e., multinational) resorts. These facilities are designed to provide the standard of accommodation, services, or types of food that such tourists are accustomed to at home. Organized mass tourists are highly dependent on the tourism infrastructure and services to structure their vacation. This may be a package that bundles services together at competitive prices, whether it is a comprehensive guided tour (with all transportation, accommodation, most meals, and tour services included) or a resort package (accommodation, some or all meals, and airport transfers included). As a result, little additional planning for the trip is necessary, there is little uncertainty about what will happen on the trip, and there may be little incentive to stray from the confines of the tour bus or resort complex. Thus, there is little to no interaction with the people or the place of the destination.
Box 2.2. In-Depth: Place-Specific Tourist Typologies
Although tourist typologies have primarily come out of tourism studies based in fields such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology, these frameworks have utility for the geography of tourism as well. Many early tourist typologies sought to explore general categories of tourists that could be applied across different types of destinations for the purpose of better understanding tourists and tourism. However, more recent typologies have recognized that these general typologies are often not particularly useful in efforts to understand tourism as a place-based phenomenon. As a result, studies in the geography of tourism have developed place-specific typologies that are geographically bound to a particular destination to provide a better understanding of its specific circumstances. This will allow tourism stakeholders (i.e., the various individuals or organizations that have an interest, or stake, in tourism) to better plan, manage, and market tourism at that destination.
In one example, a place-specific tourist typology developed for Cancún, Mexico, took data provided by actual tourists from visitor surveys and interviews to identify categories of tourists and to discuss the characteristics of these tourists. Tourism stakeholders can use the resulting typology to understand how the services and experiences provided at that destination match the expectations and desires of tourists and, perhaps more importantly, how it can be improved. The Cancún typology follows the model established by the generalized typology—although, given the nature of this destination, tourists were concentrated at the mass tourist end of the spectrum (table 2.1).
For example, the “Euro Off-Beat” tourist category characterized the explorer/independent mass tourist end of the continuum. This category describes European tourists in their late twenties to early forties who stay at the destination for a week or longer and are interested in experiencing the region’s historical and cultural attractions. As is typical of this type of tourist, they are likely to stay in the destination’s principal resorts, but they also seek to explore the destination beyond the resort. Consequently, they typically do not use all-inclusive packages but take tours and eat at restaurants outside of the hotel. In general, these tourists find it difficult to have the type of experience they desire, and the data indicate that, given current conditions, they would be unlikely to return.
In contrast, the “Sun, Sea, and Sand Family” tourist category occupies a position at the organized mass tourist end of the continuum. This category describes predominantly American families looking for a good value vacation of a week or less. They may have some interest in visiting popular tourist attractions in the region, such as the archaeological ruins at Chichén Itzá, but they will typically spend most of their time at the beach or pool, participating in resort activities, and eating at on-site restaurants. These family tourists don’t like the party atmosphere that attracts the “Spring Breaker” tourists, and they consider this a detraction for the destination. However, these tourists appreciate the range of discount packages offered by the destination that gives them the opportunity to take their families on a beach vacation.
Discussion topic: What could the destination do to better meet the expectations and demands of the Euro Off-Beat tourists? Of the Sun, Sea, and Sand Family tourists?
Tourism on the web: Cancún Convention and Visitor Bureau, “Cancún Travel,” at http://cancun.travel/en/
Table 2.1. Summary of Characteristics for Each of the Categories of Tourists Identified in Cancún’s Place-Specific Typology (Categories derived from data provided by tourist
s at the destination.)
Type of Tourist
Key Characteristics
“Euro Off-Beat” Tourist
Late 20s to early 40s
European, not American
Not “all-inclusive” tour
Longer stay
Visits off-beat, historical, archaeological, and “Mundo Maya” sites
“Sun, Sea, and Sand Family” Tourist
Older—early 40s to late 60s
Family vacation
Mostly interested in “sun and sand”
Strong interest in good service and good food
May visit a mass tourism archaeology site
“Business Breaker” Tourist
Late 20s to late 30s
Nonfamily vacation
Not “all-inclusive” tour
High expenditures
Brief stay
Mostly interested in “sun and sand”
Not interested in visiting archaeological, historical, or “Mundo Maya” sites
“Non-Breaker Student” Tourist
Early 20s
Likely to be American
Organized student package tour, but not classic “Spring Breaker”
Visits off-beat, archaeological, and historical sites
Source
Torres, Rebecca Maria, and Velvet Nelson. “Identifying Types of Tourists for Better Planning and Development: A Case Study of Nuanced Market Segmentation in Cancún.” Applied Research in Economic Development 5, no. 3 (2008): 12–24.
Tourist Motivations
Clearly these types of tourists have different motivations for and interests in tourism experiences. In the geography of tourism, we need to know what factors cause people to temporarily leave one place for another. If we understand these factors, we can begin to explain why certain places developed as significant tourist-generating regions and why others became significant receiving regions. Likewise, it helps destinations to better know where their potential tourist markets are by matching up what they have to offer with the places where the demand for that product is greatest. However, motivations may be complicated, and it is rarely just one thing that causes people to seek tourism experiences.
The motivation that has long been most commonly associated with tourism is the pursuit of pleasure. However, implicit in this motivation is the real or perceived need for a temporary change of setting. This may be considered a geographic push factor, or something that impels people to temporarily leave home to travel somewhere else. We may think of this as an escape from the routine of daily life with the associated home and work issues, or boredom with familiar physical and social environments. Correspondingly, it is assumed that there is something that can be obtained at the destination that cannot be obtained at home. This may be considered a geographic pull factor, or something that attracts people to a particular destination. The pull may be something tangible that may be obtained at the destination, like being able to buy certain types of local products or eat authentic local cuisine. In most cases, however, it is an intangible, like having the opportunity to interact with new people, getting a week’s worth of sunny 80ºF weather in the middle of winter, or having access to fresh snow at a prime ski resort. For both the push and the pull, this “something” will be different for everyone.
Borrowing from one of geography’s related disciplines—anthropology—we can see how these motivations have been laid out in Nelson Graburn’s concept of tourist inversions.3 In this theory, the experience we seek in our temporary escape is one of contrasts. Much of this involves a shift in attitudes or patterns of behavior away from the norm to a temporary opposite. One of the most common examples is the inversion from work and stress to peace and relaxation. For example, when we spend a long period of time working hard at school or at a job (or, in some cases, both simultaneously), tourism becomes our means of seeking the opposite: going on vacation for a period of rest and relaxation away from the stresses of what occupies us in our daily lives. Likewise, the shift from economy to extravagance is another common inversion that applies to many of us. We often have to budget our money in the course of our daily lives, but we will save up and splurge on a vacation. During these few days, we may spend more on food, drinks, entertainment, and other activities than we normally would.
In some cases, these inversions in behavior contribute to the generally poor reputation of tourists in many parts of the world. In particular, many inversions go from moderation to excess. Graburn suggests that overindulgence in food is the product of one tourist inversion. The same idea applies to overindulgence in alcohol and drugs. This inversion, as highlighted by MTV, is the one that gives spring break tourists—and, by extension, spring break destinations—a bad name. In the case of this inversion, students who usually go to class, study, work, party occasionally, and generally live within the norms of society travel to a spring break hotspot during the designated semester break and party to excess, with all that it entails.
There is also a geographic dimension to tourist inversions, in terms of a shift away from the tourist’s home and community toward a temporary opposite. This shift is much more locally contingent, and the inversions may, in fact, work both ways. One of the most common inversions of this type involves the movement from cold climates to warm ones. People in middle and upper latitudes that experience long, cold winters may seek to escape that weather—and the associated symptoms of seasonal affective disorder—for a short time by traveling to a warm, sunny place in the lower latitudes (figures 2.3 and 2.4). At the same time, people in warm climates may travel to colder ones to be able to participate in winter sports, such as skiing. People in densely populated urban areas may seek to escape the congestion, noise, and pollution of the city for expansive natural areas such as the national parks, although people living in rural areas or small towns may seek to get away from the insularity of that life by getting lost in a big city.
Figure 2.3. For many people who live in cold-weather climates, long winters of dealing with icy and snowy conditions, such as these occurring in the U.S. state of Ohio, can be a distinct geographic push factor for tourism. (Source: Amber Fisher)
Figure 2.4. Just as a cold-weather climate can serve as a push factor, warm and sunny climates, such as that found on the Caribbean Island of Tortola, British Virgin Islands, can serve as a distinct geographic pull factor and create a demand for the winter/spring break. (Source: Tom Nelson)
Types of Demand
In the last chapter, our definition of demand included both those persons who travel and those who wish to travel. Consequently, we need to distinguish between different types of demand, including effective demand, suppressed demand, or no demand. Effective demand is the type of demand we typically think of, as it refers to those people who wish to and have the opportunity to travel. We can measure effective demand relatively easily with tourism statistics like visitation rates and participation in certain tourism activities.
However, this does not give us a complete picture, as participation is not always reflective of desire. How many of us have wanted to travel (i.e., have had a demand for travel) at some point in our lives but have not been able to, for one reason or another? Suppressed demand refers to the people who wish to travel but do not. It is much more difficult to measure the number of people who simply want to travel. Moreover, there are many reasons why people who wish to travel do not, so we can break this category down even further. Potential demand is a type of suppressed demand that refers to those people who want to travel and will do so when their circumstances change. For example, students often have a potential demand for tourism. This means that they may have an interest in (or a perceived need for!) tourism experiences, but they may not have the discretionary income (i.e., the money that is left over after taxes and all other necessary expenses of life like rent, food, transportation, clothing, tuition, and books have been taken care of) to travel.
Box 2.3. Case Study: Barbados’s “Perfect Weather”
It hardly seem
s like one would need a reason to visit the Caribbean island nation of Barbados. That it has a reputation as a tropical island paradise is usually enough to create a distinct demand for the experience of such a destination. Yet, the island does not attract visitors from all over the world. Rather, there is a distinct geographic distribution of tourists to Barbados, as 79 percent come from only two geographic regions: North America and Europe. In particular, 34 percent come from just one country: the United Kingdom. Of course, there are many variables that we would need to consider if we were to fully understand these geographic patterns, such as historical relations, modern transportation connections between tourist-generating regions and the destination, levels of development in the generating regions, the type of attractions offered by the destination, and many more. However, one of the simplest explanations is weather.
Although there is relatively little seasonal variation for Barbados, there is nonetheless a distinct tourism season from November through April. In 2009, fully two-thirds of total tourist arrivals, including over three-fourths of cruise passenger arrivals, were concentrated in this six-month time period, consisting of the most difficult winter and early spring conditions for the majority of Barbados’s North American and Northern European tourists. In particular, December accounted for the largest number of arrivals, with nearly 14 percent of total arrivals. Conversely, the months that received the lowest visitor arrivals were the summer months, when these generating regions experience the most favorable weather conditions and when Barbados experiences its least favorable conditions. June saw the lowest arrivals by cruise ship, with only three percent of passengers. September, the peak of Atlantic hurricane season, saw the lowest arrivals by air, with only five percent of stay-over tourists.
An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism Page 5