Marketing Cultural and Heritage Tourism by Rosemary Rice McCormick

Author:Rosemary Rice McCormick [McCormick, Rosemary Rice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611328776
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

One economic benefit of drive-market travel, beyond the compelling numbers, is the simple fact that shoppers have room to transport their purchases. There are no worries about luggage restrictions or excess baggage fees. Plus the flexibility of auto transportation means that it’s easy to visit multiple shopping districts, museums and parks in a leisurely manner and truly enjoy the experience.

Economics and Technology

While economic conditions were the single most negative impact on taking a leisure trip in both 2008 and 2009, gas prices are the factor that impacts the highest percentage of these driving travelers. Almost three-fifths (58 percent) cited gas prices as negatively impacting their decision. Another negative influence is not having disposable income (47 percent). For Generation Y, 40 percent reported being “time poor”—too busy to get away.

Online planning is the preferred method of gathering information, with 63 percent of all travelers going directly to the website of the destination they plan to visit. This is consistent among all generations—50 percent among Gen Y, 63 percent of Gen X and 71 percent of Boomers. Only 29 percent used a traditional travel agency for booking their trips. Seventy percent of driving travelers are likely to use an online website or program that combines trip planning tools for local information about the destination, booking capabilities, mapping and navigational aids.

Conducting general Internet searches using Google, Yahoo or other search engines was cited by 55 percent, ahead of recommendations from family, friends or word-of-mouth (51 percent). Other key sources of information include third-party travel sites at 43 percent (with those over 64 doing it the least at 23 percent compared to 55 percent of Gen X), requested brochures and information at 30 percent (15 percent of Gen Y compared to 38 percent of Boomers and 35 percent of those over 64) and online portals at 26 percent Ideas from the media, television and movies (23 percent), travel magazines (22 percent), published reviews (19 percent) and newspaper travel sections (18 percent) also play a role.

Nearly 97 percent of survey participants use a computer, with little variance among age groups. Sixty-two percent have a mobile phone, and 43 percent use it on their leisure trips. More than one-third (38 percent) have a portable navigation device or GPS system, and 35 percent have smart phones, with die greatest ownership among Generation X and Generation Y. Five percent of the overall population use an iPad.

More than half of all those surveyed had used social networking sites for two years or more: 68 percent of Gen Y, 61 percent of Gen X, 41 percent of Boomers and 35 percent of those over 64. Facebook is visited by more than half (54 percent) of the travelers surveyed. However, the disparity among generations is quite high with 70 percent of Gen Y regularly visiting Facebook, 60 percent of Gen X, 49 percent of Boomers and 35 percent of those over 64.

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