In today's highly competitive and global economy, understanding tourist behavior is imperative to success. Tourist behavior has become a cornerstone of any marketing strategy and action. This book provides an overview of such processes and influences and explains the concepts and theories that underlie tourist decision making and behavior.

Make the most of your online business resources The growing acceptance and use of the Internet as an increasingly valuable travel tool has tourism and hospitality businesses taking a critical look at their business-to-customer online environments while pondering such questions as, “How do I get people to visit my Web site?” “Is my Web site attracting the ’right’ kind of e-consumers?” and “How do I turn browsers into buyers?” The Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism, and the Internet analyzes the latest strategies involving Internet business applications that will help you attract—and keep—online travel customers. Researchers from the United States, Europe, and Asia present the latest findings you need to make the right decisions regarding long-term e-commerce development and planning. The Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism, and the Internet examines vital issues affecting the travel and tourism industry from an online perspective. This book analyzes the latest theory and research on general online buyer characteristics, the differences between online and offline consumer behavior, the differences between broadband and narrowband users, the online search process, quality and perception of lodging brands, and Web site design, maintenance, and development. Each section of the book includes a model/diagram that serves as an overview of the topic, followed by a thorough discussion on the topic from several sources. Each section ends with commentary on the areas where future research is needed. The book’s contributors use a variety of research methodologies ranging from qualitative data analyses using artificial neutral network analysis, to experimental design, non-parametric statistical tests, and structural equation modeling. Topics examined in the Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism, and the Internet include: the need for businesses to use internal examinations to determine and meet online consumer needs the emerging field of e-complaint behavior—consumers taking to the Web to voice complaints about travel services how to use e-tools to measure guest satisfaction how to measure consumer reaction to Web-based technology the Internet’s impact on decision making for travel products and how to use e-mail marketing, electronic customer relationship management (eCRM), Web positioning, and search engine placement The Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism, and the Internet is equally valuable as a classroom resource or professional reference, providing up-to-date material on Internet applications and their impact on consumers and e-commerce.

As the field of tourism and hospitality experiences maturity and scientific sophistication, researchers need to fully understand the breadth and depth of existing scales that help explain, understand, monitor, and predict not only behaviour but also consequences of such behaviour as a function of demand and supply interactions in the field. By introducing the importance of measurement and scales and providing groupings of existing scales The Handbook of Scales in Tourism and Hospitality Research serves as the state of the art reference book in the field of tourism, hospitality and allied fields such leisure, recreation, and services management .

Consumer behaviour is one of the most explored topics in tourism and hospitality marketing, interchangeably denoted by the terms ‘traveller behaviour’, ‘tourist behaviour’ or ‘guest behaviour’. Consumer behaviour acts as an origin for every tourism and hospitality marketing activity. It offers an understanding of why people tend to choose certain products or services and what sort of factors influence them in making their decision. The decision process of buying tourism products or services takes time, because they are mostly intangible in nature due to which there are many risks involved in their buying process. The Routledge Handbook of Consumer Behaviour in Hospitality and Tourism aims to explore and critically examine current debates, critical reflections of contemporary ideas, controversies and pertinent queries relating to the rapidly expanding discipline of consumer behaviour in hospitality and tourism. The Handbook offers a platform for dialogue across disciplinary and national boundaries and areas of study through its diverse coverage. It is divided into six parts: Part I offers an overview of consumer behaviour; Part II focuses on the service quality perspectives of consumer behaviour; Part III deliberates on customer satisfaction and consumer behaviour linkages; Part IV explores the re-patronage behaviour of consumers; Part V addresses the vital issues concerning online consumer behaviour; and Part VI elaborates upon other emerging paradigms of consumer behaviour. Although there is no dearth of empirical studies on different viewpoints of consumer behaviour, there is a scarcity of literature providing conceptual information. The present Handbook is organised to offer a comprehensive theoretical body of knowledge narrating consumer behaviour, especially for hospitality and tourism businesses and operations. It attempts to fill this research gap by offering a 'globalised' volume comprising chapters organised using both practical and academic approaches. This Handbook is essential reading for students, researchers and academics of Hospitality as well as those of Tourism, Marketing, International Business and Consumer Behaviour.

This comprehensive Handbook offers an overview of current research on the use of social media within the tourism industry, investigating a range of social media practices and proposing strategies to address key challenges faced by tourist destinations and operators.

Global Tourist Behavior contains travel and marketing research that explores the integral global nature of tourism. The globalization of tourism has resulted in more culturally diverse travelers with different preferences, motivations, expectations, and needs, while at the same time worldwide movements toward democracy have made some locations more accessible than ever before. New diversity in global tourist behavior and the reciprocal interaction between travelers and destinations will pose new challenges and create new opportunities for tourism professionals. Global Tourist Behavior helps readers meet these challenges by providing unique and invaluable new research on global travel behavior as an integral component of travel and tourism marketing research. It features original, empirical research by tourism scholars representing a variety of locations worldwide, including North America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Zambia. The geographically diverse chapters in Global Tourist Behavior present research on: marketing places to tourists tourists’knowledge of culture issues in cross-cultural tourism tourism channels and distribution systems international tourism and marketing expert systems in tourism marketing management the impact of mega events health tourism. Tourism promoters, decisionmakers, and students will find the information on international travelers’preferences, expectations, motivations, images, attitudes, and choices of tour packages extremely helpful. The book can also be used as a guide for attracting international tourist business and developing appropriate marketing and management strategies for specific destinations.

The Routledge Handbook of Tourism Experience Management and Marketing offers a comprehensive and thorough inquiry into both customary and emergent issues of tourism experience and co-creation. Drawing together contributions from 83 authors from 28 countries with varied backgrounds and interdisciplinary interests, the handbook highlights multiple representations and interpretations of the theme. It also integrates a selection of illustrative global case studies to effectively present its chapter contents. Tourism experience drives the contemporary tourist’s behavior as they travel in pursuit of experiencing unique and unusual destinations and activities. Creating a memorable and enduring experience is therefore a prerequisite for the all tourism business organizations irrespective of the nature of their products or services. This handbook focuses on conceptualizing, designing, staging, managing and marketing paradigms of tourism experiences from both supply and demand perspectives. It sheds substantial light on the contemporary theories, practices and future developments in the arena of experiential tourism management and marketing. Encompassing the latest thinking and research themes, this will be an essential reference for upper-level students, researchers, academics and industry practitioners of hospitality as well as those of tourism, gastronomy, management, marketing, consumer behavior, cultural studies, development studies and international business, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.