A travel decision-making framework inhibiting inbound tourism

Abstract

The primary objective of this study was to develop ‘A travel decision-making framework inhibiting inbound tourism’ to assist marketers and the tourism government body in developing strategies to improve the market share of South Africa as a tourism destination for the European market, especially France. To achieve this objective, a number of secondary objectives were established, these being: 1. To analyse previous travel decision-making models and frameworks by means of an in-depth literature review. 2. To analyse the inhibitors and constraints influencing travel decision-making by means of an in-depth literature review. 3. To analyse travel inhibitors to South Africa as perceived by European tourists with reference to types and relationships between constraints by means of an empirical analyses. 4. To determine the influence of socio-demographics and travel behaviour on the evaluation of inhibitors. 5. To determine the effect of destination image and travel influencing factors on inhibitors. 6. To make conclusions and recommendations regarding the management of travel inhibitors of South Africa as a tourism destination and the implementation of the framework. Tourists do not make single independent choices, but rather complex multi-faceted decisions in which the choices of different elements are interrelated in a decision process over a period of time. This absence of in-depth research into the non-user and the associated constraints represents an important limitation to fully grasp consumer behaviour research. The study of tourist consumer behaviour should not only attempt to comprehend the decision-making process of tourists, but should attempt to understand the variety of constraints preventing non-tourists from becoming tourists. The literature review (Chapter 2), revealed that although a number of decision-making models exists, in-depth analysis of the effects of constraints on decision-making were limited. The literature review further analysed, specific theory of constraints. Although constraint theories were mostly focused on leisure studies, certain key variables assisted the researcher in the categorisation of constraints as well as inhibitors. Specific constraints and inhibitors that could potentially influence decision-making to South Africa were reviewed in the literature review. The quantitative study was conducted by means of two different approaches where nonprobability sampling was applied in both cases. A complete list of residents of France and visitors to France that have not visited South Africa was not obtainable and therefore a complete sampling framework was not available. In the first phase questionnaires were distributed in France by trained fieldworkers. This destination was chosen due to the number of tourist’s receipts (85 million per year) as well as the number of outbound tourists (20-30 million per year). Visitors from France are not one of South Africa’s main markets and therefore the chances of selecting non-visitors to South Africa in France were good. Secondly, in Paris the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Coeur and Montmarte were chosen as popular tourism attractions, in Angers Le Château d'Angers and The Maine River were chosen. Thus not only focusing on French nationalities as a target population, but also on the outbound travelling market of France as well as Central Europe in general and also a number of North and South American tourist as statistics have indicated that the latter niche market made a significant contribution on the GDP of France in 2011. In the second phase questionnaires were distributed through Facebook and Social media sites by means of snowball sampling. In total 300 questionnaires were distributed of which 273 questionnaires were utilised in the statistical analyses. Result in all three articles (Chapter 3, 4 & 5) through empirical research revealed that in general decision-making, image, socio-demographic and travel behaviour factors would have a limited effect on respondents choosing South Africa as a preferred tourist destination if certain perceived and real inhibitors exist. It is thus all about the inhibitors and how that influences decisions. Respondents need to negotiate through these inhibitors before South Africa will become a primary option to meet their travel needs. In the last chapter, chapter 6, a travel decision-making framework of inhibitors was developed to specifically enable marketers and tourism planners to understand the behaviour of the non-visitor to South Africa and enable them to review the constraints and plan and market accordingly. Thus this model enables a more focused marketing approach. Further contributions of the study from the first article (chapter 3) include the assessment of these inhibitors in the South African case study and the realisation that security is not our biggest inhibitor but structural constraints. The perceptions that South Africa is expensive to travel to should thus be addressed with different marketing strategies and approaches. It was the first time that an elaborated list of travel inhibitors were identified and assessed and thus a more detailed description of these as well as their role in travel decisions contributes to the body of knowledge of tourism marketing and decision-making. In the last article (chapter 5), the relations between image and travel inhibitors are a major contribution which has not been assessed previously. This gives new perspective as to how inhibitors can be managed through the development of an image that minimises the effect of inhibitors. Access to non-visitors is challenging and therefore this study contributes to a scarce population which is difficult to research. More research such as this study is needed to grow visitor numbers. It is thus clear that in-depth knowledge was needed into the travel constraints of non-visitors to South Africa in order to overcome these and grow visitor numbers. For the purpose of this study the words ‘constraints’ and ‘inhibitors’ will be used interchangeably based on the context in which the words are being used. This study follows the article route