Moods & Motivations of the

tourist
by Manu Minne & Dr. Jeroen Bryon

THE tourist
Q&A:
- Describe a typical tourist in your area?
- Which type of tourists do you prefer?
- Which type of tourist do you guide?
- On what aspects can tourists differ?

TOURIST TYPOLOGIES

Demographic factors

Travelling style distinctions

Product and activity

classifications

Age
Gender
Nationality
Additional demographic factors:
Expenditure
Occupation
Education
Family life cycle

Accommodation used
Activity participation
Destination patterns
Length of stay
Trip purpose
Distance travelled
Travel party composition
Seasonality / travel time
Travel arrangements:
- independent
- package
- mixed
Transport mode

Cultural tourists:
- heritage tourists
- ethnic tourists
Nature oriented tourists:
- wildlife tourists
- ecotourists
Adventure tourists
Educational tourists:
- science tourists
- volunteers
Theme park tourists
Casino tourists
Urban tourists
Agricultural tourists:
- wine tourists
- farm tourists
Sex tourists:
- romance tourists
- companionship tourists
Business tourists:
- conference tourists
- event tourists
4

Demographic: family life cycle

From: Page & Connell (2006: 74)

Product and activities: cultural tourists

McKercher, Towards a classification of cultural tourists, p.32

All these are fine, but there are dozens and

dozens of typologies... Basically as much as
there are people making them...
And although for marketing reasons they each
might be interesting for the tourist guide theres
only one real important questionwhen it comes
to who is your tourist?

How can we make him/her happy?

Forget about typologies!

Think Motivations,
Moments & Moods

Think Motivations
& Moods
Q&A:
- Why do tourists travel?
- What are they looking for?
- What do they want?

10

11

A typology of 15
leisure-based
tourist roles

From: Page & Connell (2006: 72) after Foo,

McGuiggon & Yiannakis (2004)

12

Gallup classification model

Classification

Description

Impact

Adventurers

Better educated, higher

income

Attracted to new cultures

and experiences

Indulgers

Wealthier, both men and

women

Want to be pampered and

willing to pay

Economizers

Older, men, average

income

Vacations are routine part

of life

Dreamers

Older, women, modest

income and education

View travel as meaningful

experience, play safe on
choice, but dream of
more adventure

Worriers

Less educated, lower

income

Do not like to travel

because of discomfort
with unknown
From: Kolb (2006: 118)
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Look at Basic motivational needs

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Drivers of human behavior

RELEASE/FREE
Open for new experiences
Looking for pleasure/excitement

SELF/INDIVIDUAL
Strenghtening own
personality,
character

OTHER/COLLECTIVE
Strenghtening
sense of belonging

Restore the Balance

CONTROL/NORMATIVE

Frijda (1986)

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Horizontal axis: relation to yourself and others

SELF: individual, independent, social affirmation
OTHER: social being, family friends, feel accepted, social integration

Vertical axis: relation to you environment

RELEASE: let yourself go, open minded, surprise, extrovert,
emotional, live out emotions
CONTROL: security, routine, introvert, considered, control emotions

7 segments of travelers
in Belgium
RELEASE/FREE
Fun travellers

14%
Independent explorer

8%

Quiet enjoyer

14%
Family Traveller

SELF

16%

21%
Cultural traveller

OTHER

16%
Carefree traveller
13%

Safe traveller

CONTROL/NORMATIVE
Flemish Tourism Board17

RELEASE

DARE

Fun travellers

SHARE

14%
Independent explorer

8%

Quiet enjoyer

14%
Family Traveller

SELF

16%

21%

16%
Carefree traveller

Cultural traveller

13%

CARE

OTHER

Safe traveller

CONTROL
Flemish Tourism Board18

Discover new things

Adventure and culture
History
Difficult

Child friendly
Stops on the route
Together

RELEASE

DARE

Fun travellers

SHARE

14%
Independent explorer

8%

Quiet enjoyer

14%
Family Traveller

SELF

16%

21%

16%
Carefree traveller

Easy
Cultural traveller
Short routes
Accesible
Afternoon trip

CARE

OTHER

13%

Safe traveller

CONTROL
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Example
Applied to different kinds of hikers:
DARE: explore, learn, active, off the beaten
track
CARE: relax, enjoy, easy
SHARE: connect, do things together

Excercise 1: Pictures
Is/are the tourist(s) in the pictures below in a
care, dare or share mood?
Why?

13/12/2011

www.lsdialoog.com

22

www.lsdialoog.com

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The tour guide is cutting the coconut for them

during a break... This must be tourists in a caremoment?!
Really? Look at the faces of the 2 tourists on the
right in the pictures.... Are you really going to
eat that?!
Might be more of a dare-moment for them...

25

This could indeed be dare...

But also care if part of a yoga retreat for
example....

13/12/2011

www.lsdialoog.com

27

This definitely looks like a nice intercultural

encounter with a tourist in share-mood...
But is this true? Look at how shes holding her
backpack...

29

13/12/2011

www.lsdialoog.com

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pictures

13/12/2011

www.lsdialoog.com

31

The tattooed man left lookis like a typical darebackpacker....

But if you look at their expressions and the fact
that no one is drinking the traditional ta but
everyone chose a cold coca-cola (or comforting
drink), it could be a care-moment.....

Care/Dare/Share fixed state!!

Tourists change mood all the time!
Off course some people tend more to
be dare, others care or share
but some people are either one some
of the time....!!!

Excercise 2: Profiling
List several tourism product elements
for CARE- / DARE- & SHARE- tourists
in your area

Extra: think of places, where the three tourists would meet each other
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Lets have a look at some cases

Case 1
After lunch activity on a day mountain walk?
a)
b)
c)
d)

You take time for a collective photoshoot

You let people have time for a little nap
You organize a group talk
You start walking

Case 2
You arrive in a city after three day trekking?

a) You go to a bar to have a drink all together

b) You let people go to their hotel to take a
shower
c) You go out for dinner with the group to a
restaurant
d) You take the men to very traditional local bar
and the woman to a manicure/massage
parlor

Case 3
You go to a local market in one of Vietnams
remote villages and you see that tourists are
watching the local men drink a bowl of blood.

We could look at a lot of other cases but the

answer should be the same by now:
It depends
On what?
The mood of the tourist(s) at that particular
moment!

What does this mean for the

tourist guide?
How to tips

1. Integrate and balance

CARE, DARE & SHARE moments
in all your tours!
- Everybody needs his comfort zone, respect that and
make room in the program for care moments
- Look for challenges that push tourist limits (physical,
psychological, intellectual,), but make sure that the
challenges are feasible & fun
- Integrate moments to exchange experiences, e.g. by
executing collective tasks with the whole group

2. Check the mood of your

tourists, and adapt the tour if
necessary
- Create moments to check on the mood (e.g. before
entering the bus)
- Listen to and learn from your tourists
- Dare to deviate from your planning if the tourists
mood requires to do so, but consult your tourists in
time

3. Take customers motivations

& moods into account
when communicating your product
- Adjust your communication to your target groups. Do
this for all phases: before, during, after
- Be aware of marketing overkill because it threatens the
perception of authenticity (if you offer a dare tour,
do not label everything as extreme)
- Consider using social media (e.g. facebook), but adapt
to the customers motivations!

www.viaviatourismacademy.com