Introduction
Tourism is among the world’s leading industry. Tourism is the short term movement of individuals to places that are outside their residences or places of work (Burkart and Medik, 1981). Who is a tourist?
A tourist is not the international person who has used air means of transport for a vacation, but a domestic or international person, irrespective of the means of transport, who has visited a place with certain reasons, such as health related, active sport, educational, cultural or business related trips.
Today’s competitive economy, prosperity in tourism is greatly determined by understanding tourist behavior and integrating them to marketing strategy. This enables reduction of negative impacts during their tour, stay and interactions between the tourist and hosts. Tourist behavior emerges from the social, cultural and environmental systems.
Balanced Critique
The essay lacks an introduction that would define tourism, numerous grammatical errors, lack in consistency of citation styles, and the brilliant ideas are either repeated over and over and lacks flow in his/her presentation. Although the first paragraph provides misconception of information, the author explains on the different reasons for travelling varying from education, trade and pleasure.
He/she outlines the benefits of tourism to include improvement of infrastructure, creation of employment, and social interaction among many others. He/she is also right to say that every traveler has expectations and always share their experiences with their loved ones. This implies that they play a great role in promoting tourism industry.
Therefore tourist’s satisfaction should be the first priority o every marketer and hence all their suggestions, comments and recommendation should be put into consideration. Second paragraph categorizes tourist based on their behavior. Those tourists who visit environmental related –nature biased-, they visit beaches, waterfalls, forest, (Swarbrookes, 1999).
Critique supported by examples
What attracts tourists who are nature biased are aspects such as greenery and beeches (Andrew, Bigne & Cooper, 2000). Ego –tourist travel to show how sophisticated and wealthy they are, popular stars would fall under this category, they only travel to popular destination, Ethical based tourists (Butcher, 2003), responsible tourist (Lea, 1993) and spiritual tourist.
Research in tourism marketing has improved dramatically in quality and depth, to reflect the growth of the field. Academics and marketers have grouped tourists together according to the characteristics they share. The importance of the grouping (typologies) embrace prediction of tourism trends, aid in product development and pricing of commodities (Swarbrooke& Horner, 2007, p5).
These typologies reflect individual’s interests. Four Typologies are identified, two of non institutionalized roles; grafter and explorer and two institutionalized namely; organized mass tourist and individual tourist. (Cohen, 1972). Typologies also describe market niches to promote and advertise the market accordingly.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is important to note that tourists’ behaviors are based on individual preferences and goals. These may include influences from families and friends, perceived risks and the environment. Their behavior could also be associated with the unpleasant challenges such as global inequity, distribute justice, poverty alleviation, fuel shortage and climate change.
Therefore, the status, role and behavior of tourists are being interrogated, that is their roles to the problems and their solution. Moreover, tourism should be sustained so that tourists can enjoy their vacation and respect the environment and culture. The main aim of tourism should be in bringing a positive impact to the society, industry, nation and the tourist themselves.
References
Andreu. L, Bigne.E & Cooper.C (2000). Projected and Perceived image of Spain as a tourist destination for British Travellers. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 9(4), 47-67.
Cohen, E. (1972) ‘Toward a sociology of international tourism’, Social Research 39:164—82. – (1979) ‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences‘, Sociology 13: 179—202.
Butcher, J. (2003). The moralization of tourism; sun sand and saving the world. New York: Routledge Publishers.
Burkart and Medik, (1981). The journal of European history, volume 35, Issue 1
Lea, J.P (1993).Tourism development ethics in the Third World. Annals of Tourism Research 20 (4), 701-715.
Pizam, A., & Sussman, S. (1995). Does nationality affect tourist behavior? Annals of Tourism research 22(4), 901-917
Swarbrooke, J. (1999). Sustainable Tourism Management. Wallingford: CABI
Swarbrooke, J., and Horner, S. (2007) Consumer behavior in tourism. Oxford: Elsevier.