The Factor Affects The Consumer Behavior Marketing Essay

Consumer behavior can be defined as individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes which use to select, secure, and dispose the products, services, experiences, or ideas to fulfill the consumer needs and the affect on the consumer and society nowadays. In fact, customer behavior is based on consumer buying behavior which the customers have three distinct roles such as user, payer and buyer. Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products. In hospitality and tourism industry, consumer need to pay for buy the product and service that provided.

Consumer behavior can be affect by both internal and external factors. Decision-making process is customer may search for information and evaluation and selection of alternatives. Consumer may like to get the information easily. There are some of the factor may influence consumer to make a decision. To figure out the factor, the researcher needs to find out their attitudes, perception, motivation and images. Firstly, attitude as one of the factor to influence the consumer making decision which the attitude is depending on an individual’s perception of the world. Secondly, the perception can be defined as mental impressions of a destination or travel company. Third, for the travel motivation of consumer can be explain why people choose to travel and they initiate travel demand and last of the factor is image which are the beliefs, ideas and impressions related to the products and destinations.

‘Understanding the Hospitality Consumer’ provide a distinctive perspective on consumer behavior in the hospitality sector. People working in the service sector are related to the customer relations because the more that your business puts across the idea that they care about the customer, the more that customer will return to your restaurant, bar hotel, catering service, or any hospitality business. Besides that, in order to increase the consumption of tourism products, some research must be carry out to understand the important on tourism and find out the way in which tourism consumers make decisions related to the consumption of tourism products. Certainly, some of the consumers need should be realize such as the consumers purchase motives and decision process relating with the consumption of tourism and the different market segments.

2.2 Motivation of Tourists

Nowadays, there are many authors defined motivation as a major determinant of the tourist’s behavior. Mostly, the theory of motivation is related to the concept of need. Needs are seen as the force that arouses motivated behavior and it is assumed that, to understand human motivation, it is necessary to discover what needs people have and how they can be fulfilled. Maslow in 1943 was the first to attempt to do this with his needs hierarchy theory, now the best known of all motivation theories.

Physiological needs

Hunger, thirst, sex, sleep, air

Safety needs

Freedom from threat or danger

Social needs

Feeling of belonging, affection and friendship

Esteem needs

Self- respect, achievement. Self-confidence, reputation, recognition, prestige

Needs for self- actualization

Self-fulfillment, realizing one’s potential

Figure 4.1 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Source: Maslow, 1943)

Other attempts to explain tourist motivation have identified with Maslow’s needs hierarchy. Mill and Morrison (1985), for example, see travel as a need or want satisfier, and show how Maslow’s hierarchy ties in with travel motivations and the travel literature. Similarly, Dann’s (1977) tourism motivators can be linked to Maslow’s list of needs. He argued that there are basically two factors in a decision to travel, the push factors and the pull factors. The push factors are those that make you want to travel and the pull factors are those that affect where you travel. In his appraisal of tourism motivation, Dann proposed seven categories of travel motivation:

Travel as a response to what is lacking yet desired. We live in an anomic society and this, according to Dann, fosters a need in people for social interaction that is missing from the home environment.

Destination pull in response to motivational push

Motivation as a fantasy

Motivation as a classified purpose, such as visiting friends and relatives or study.

Motivational typologies

Motivation and tourist experiences

Motivation as auto-definition and meaning, suggesting that the way tourists define their situations will provide a greater understanding of tourist motivation than simply observing their behavior.

2.3 Destination Choice

There is few research studies of destination choice have been analyzed personal values to determine for the reason of consumers choose a particular destination. According to Muller (1991) stated, he has developed profiles for various section in an international tourism market in order to demonstrate the usefulness of profiling visitor segments in such a way that the importance of various tourism destination criteria could be attributed to specific value orientations. Besides that, he also believed that value-based data are easier to obtain than lifestyle profiles because a value survey is considerably shorter than a lifestyle questionnaire. The approach taken was to:

Isolate segments in the market, based on the importance visitors attach to several attributes of a city visit

Develop value-based profiles of these segments

Assess the marketing implications of the value profiles for tourism product development and promotional strategies.

According to Crompton, 1977, the destination choice has been conceptualized as having two phases which are generic phase and the second phase is concerned with where to go. The generic phase issue the fundamental issue of whether or not to have a holiday at all. Once the decision-making for vacation is made, the second phase is concerned with where to go such as plan for destination choice. On the other hand, Um and Crompton, 1990 also explored a concept as to probe the second phase with developing a framework of travel destination choice for consumer to provide a context for the study. In facts, the concepts used in the framework were consists of external inputs, internal inputs and cognitive constructs. For the external inputs part, the sum of social interactions and marketing communications to which a potential traveler is exposed and the internal inputs were viewed as a potential traveler which includes personal characteristics, motives, values and attitudes. For the last one of cognitive constructs which represent an combination of the internal and external inputs into the destinations and the evoked set of destinations.

2.2 Factor Affects the Consumer Behavior

2.2.1 Web

The rapid growth of the internet has changed the way people search information about hospitality and tourism services. Product knowledge, or expertise and familiarity, seem to influence travelers’ information search activities (Gursoy, 2003). The impact of multi-channel access on consumers’ decision making processes was discussed in Louviers et al. (2003) study of the global hotel industry. In a cross-cultural study of German and Japanese visitors to the US, Money and Crotts (2003) show that uncertainty avoidance as a cultural dimension influences consumers’ information search processes, including channel choices.

Difference between on-line shoppers and non-shoppers were examined in the context of travel purchases (Card et al., 2003). Although response speed was identified as one of the key ingredients to a successful recovery following an e-mail complaint to a hotel (Mattila and Mount, 2003a), hotels seem to be failing in this area. In a study of Singaporean travel agents, Murphy and Tan (2003) report that customers have a slim chance of receiving a reply to their e-mail inquiry. Similar disappointing results were reported in a Swiss context (Frey et al., 2003). Poria and Oppewal (2003) suggest that on-line news discussions might provide a new avenue for investigating consumer behavior. Dube et al. (2003), on the other hand, argue that “experience engineering” is a necessary component of value creation in today’s hospitality industry and that the internet could be effectively used to set stage for pleasurable experiences.

2.2.2 Safety and mature consumers

In the post-9/11 environment safety and security have resurfaced as topics of interest. While some cross-cultural differences exist in customer perceptions of airline service (Kim and Prideaux, 2003), Gilbert and Wong (2003) show that assurance, including safety concerns, is the most crucial service quality dimension among international travelers. Since safety is one of people’s intrinsic motivations, understanding tourists’ perceptions of crime is critical for destination marketing (Barker et al., 2003). George (2003), for example, examined tourist perceptions of safety while visiting Cape Town, a representative of destinations with an unsafe image. Looking at food safety issues, Reynolds and Balinbin (2003) show that educating consumers about Mad Cow disease positively influences their perceptions of beef as a safe choice.

The aging population is a major demographic shift in today’s Western world. To better understand that needs and wants of these mature consumers, many hospitality researchers have turned their attention to this growing market segment. On a positive note, an examination of economic and socio-demographic factors suggests that the demand for full-service restaurants is going to increase in the near future partly due to aging population (Kim and Geistfeld, 2003). Research by Moschis et al. (2003) suggests that mature consumers respond differently to various marketing promotions, but that monetary appeals might not be the most effective way of reaching this target population. These more mature consumers seem to strive for socialization when dinning out (Yamanaka et al., 2003). In terms of advertising, hospitality and tourism marketers need to understand how behavioral scripting in TV ads influences older consumers’ perceptions of hospitality products and services (Peterson and Sautter, 2003). A study in a casino context shows that elderly females might be a particularly attractive but somewhat vulnerable (due to low levels of education and income) market segment (Moseley et al., 2003).

2.2.3 Pricing and other studies

Asymmetric effects of positive and negative price deviations on price, quality and value were examined by Oh (2003b). Monty and Skidmore (2003) discussed the usefulness of hedonic pricing in estimating consumers’ willingness to pay more for bed and breakfast type accommodations. Contrary to common beliefs, Kincard and Corsun (2003) demonstrate that the layout if menu items is not linked to item sales. Noriega and Lin (2003) identified difference in attitudes and behaviors of gamblers based on their preferred gambling activity whereas people with disabilities served as a sample for the effectiveness of travel agents in Hong Kong (McKercher et al., 2003).

2.2.4 Tourism studies

Regarding tourism behavior, the topics covered in hospitality and tourism journals in 2003 seem to fall in the general categories of consumer research in tourism: destination choice/image, segmentation and decision-making or choice. Understanding the basic motivations in destination choice among various target markets was the key concept in many of the published studies. Andriotis and Vaughan (2003) studied the attitudes of urban residents toward tourism development on Crete. Trekkers perceptions of Nepal were identified by Holden (2003) while Mohsin and Ryan (2003) examined motives of backpackers in Northern Australia. Naoi (2003) used Lew’s cognitive perspective in analyzing Japanese tourists’ motivations. Uriely et al. (2003) examined how residents’ religious attitudes influence their attitudes toward heritage tourism in Israel. Teye and Leclerc (2003) studied the motivations of cruise line passengers from an ethnic perspective.

Rittichainuwat et al. (2003) examined the joint influence of destination image, travel satisfaction, motivation and inhibitors on repeat purchase intent in the context of Thailand. Rezende-Parker et al. (2003) explored US visitors’ image of Brazil as a vacation destination. Pike (2003) employed repertory grid method to destination image research. From a more conceptual perspective, Kim and Yoon (2003) concluded that affect is a more salient determinant of destination image than cognition. To obtain a more dynamic view of destination perceptions, Vogt and Andereck (2003) examined how destination knowledge and desirability perceptions change during the course of the vacation. As an interesting example of interdisciplinary co-operation between academic publications, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing had a special issue co-published with Wine, Food and Tourism Marketing. Many of the articles in that issue dealt with wine regions as tourist destinations (e.g., Hashimoto and Telfer (2003) examining the Niagara Region, Frochot (2003) investigating the impact of food images on French Regional Tourism and Du Rabd et al. (2003) focusing on food destination marketing in South Africa).

Culture or geographic location was the main focus in most of the segmentation studies. Sirakaya et al. (2003) examined the segments of Japanese visitors to Turkey. Chen and Uyasal (2003) developed a typology of leisure travelers visiting 10 eastern states and found support for two distinct groups: novelty seekers and acquaintance visitors. In another destination based study, Wisconsin rural tourists can be classified to five distinct segments. Individuality of German tourists visiting Norway was examined by Prebensen et al. (2003). Vacation styles were used as a segmentation variable for examining winter tourists in Aurstralia (Dolnicar and Leisch, 2003). McKercher and du Cros (2003) identified typologies for cultural tourism. Razzouk and Seitz (2003) found that individuals interested in nude recreation tend to be Middle-class, well-educated Caucasians who are family-oriented and fun-loving. In an attempt to reach out to emotions, Chen (2003a) explored tourists’ sentiments toward marketing as a segmentation variable. Form a methodological perspective, Chen (2003b) introduced a new segmentation framework (travel segmentation with chi-square automatic interaction detection) to the tourism literature.

With regard to decision-making, another important line of research in tourism behavior, Van Middelkoop and Timmermans (2003) showed that other heuristics such as the context might be more beneficial than utility maximization in explaining tourist choices regarding travel mode. Kang et al. (2003) examined family decision making and its impact on segmentation strategies. To enrich our understanding of tourism choice processes, Eugenio-Martin (2003) developed a five-stage, conceptual model using a discrete choice approach.

2.3 Effects of environment on consumer behavior

Traditionally, explanations of consumer behavior are cast in terms that are rooted in cognitive psychology (Bargh, 2002). Before people buy, or choose, or decide, they engage in more or less elaborate, conscious information processing (Chaiken, 1980; Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983). Information processing may lead to certain attitudes, and these attitudes, in turn, may or may not affect decisions. The amount of information that is processed is dependent on various moderators, such as involvement (e.g., Fazio, 1990; Krugman, 1965). In addition, the sort of information that finally influences your attitudes can differ too. Attitudes can be based more on cognitive beliefs, such as when one finds a product very useful, or more on affect, such as when a product has important symbolic meanings (Venkatraman & MacInnes, 1985). However, various known moderators notwithstanding, the key always seems to be that people consciously process information before they decide what to buy (or eat, or drink, etc.). Although this emphasis on information processing is highly useful, it also has an inherent danger. The flavor of the approach is conscious and highly intrapersonal. That is, the general picture that emerges is that of a conscious decision maker who negotiates decisions based on processing the pros and cons of a certain product. There is no doubt that people sometimes do this, especially when such products are important and expensive, but very often they do not.

2.3.1 Malleable automatic attitudes

Given that consumer choices are at least partly based on automatically activated attitudes, the consequences of these findings are far-reaching. These automatically activated attitudes are not stable, and hence, they do not always lead to the same choices. Instead, such attitudes are partly determined by the current social environment and by current goals. Moreover, people are generally unaware of the moderating effects of these subtle influences.

2.4 The Identification of Factor Influencing Destination Choice

Choice has been defined as a transformation of motivation in purchasing action (Buhalis, 2000). The destination choice is made by alternative evaluation based on individual preferences and goals, while evaluation of tourist product is based on individual evaluative criteria (Moutinho, 1987).

 Factors that influence consumer behaviour can be internal and external to the individual. Among the internal determinants are social and personal, while the external ones include confidence in the travel agency, the overall image of alternatives, previous travel experience, travel constraints (time, cost, etc), degree of perceived risk, etc. Among the major influences of individual travel behaviour are family, reference groups, social classes, culture and subculture that determine individual’s personality, learning, motivation, perception (of alternatives) and attitudes (Moutinho, 1987). Eilat and Einav (2004) add destination risk to be one of the factors that influence destination choice, which, according to him, is important for both developed and less-developed countries, while fashion, common boarder, common language, and distance are also important determinants especially in less-developed countries (Eilat and Einav, 2004).

 To understand consumer behaviour, it is necessary to examine the complex interaction of many influencing internal and external factors (Moutinho, 1987). Moutinho’s study (1987) deals with determinants of behaviour, culture and reference group influences, the relationships between individuals and their environments, perceived risks, and family decision processes.

 Numerous literature studies identify social, cultural, personal, and psychological factors that influence destination choice. Cultural factors consist of culture, sub-culture, and social class. Many researchers have noticed significance of culture.

 Culture is a set of beliefs, values, ideas, attitudes and customs that characterise a particular society (Cateora and Keavency, 1987, cited in Pyne and Dimanche, 1996; Moutinho, 1987). Consumer behaviour is gradually determined by his/her culture. Culture with its norms and standards guide a consumer’s behaviour (Moutinho, 1987). Cultural norms have an impact on both tourists’ expectations and their perceptions of received service quality. People from different cultural background have different image perceptions of a destination (Bonn et al, 2005). According to Weiermair (2000), culture affects not only the way in which people experience and interpret goods and services, but it has also an impact on decision-making process and destination choice. Understanding of cultural particularities of a target group can explain and forecast tourists’ behaviour. The influence of culture and cultural differences on customer behaviour have been analysed in a variable marketing literature (Usinier, 1993; Keegan, 1984, cited in Weiermair, 2000).

 

Among the social factors are reference groups, family, roles and status. Reference groups – family, religion, ethic groups, trade union, neighbourhood etc – can be classified by primary (personal contact with a group) and secondary (occasionally), formal (trade union) and informal (neighbourhood) (Moutinho, 1987). Personal factors include age, life cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, and personality.

 Psychological factors are perhaps the most complex and difficult to understand and consist of motivation (theories of human motivation: Marshall, Freud, Veblen, Herzberg, Maslow), perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

 Another important determinant of tourist’s behaviour towards destinations and services is the tourist’s self-image – what a person thinks he or she is and what a person wants to be. There is a relationship between self-image and product image that determines tourist’s behaviour towards destinations and services. Perception and cognition influence the evaluation and judgemental process. Attitude and intention, created by learning and experience are other important concepts in tourists’ behaviour discussions (Moutinho, 1987).

 The importance of previous travel experience in the destination choice has got wide discussions between the researchers. Many of them consider previous experience on the destination to be a significant factor in the destination selection process. Thus, Woodside and Lysonski (1989, cited in Oppermann, 1997) consider that previous travel experience is a significant factor at the motivation and information stage of the destination selection process rather than the actual destination choice. Crompton (1992, cited in Oppermann, 1997) also do not consider previous experience important however he mentions ‘unpleasant personal experience set’ as significant factor in the decision-making process of the tourists.

Chapter 4: Research findings

4.1 Introduction

Research finding is the principal outcomes of a research project on what the project suggested, revealed or indicated. This usually refers to the totality of outcomes, rather than the conclusions or recommendations drawn from them. This chapter presents the result of my analysis. The first section describes the basic information derived from analysis of each variable through descriptive statistics. The second section presents the results derived from cross analysis using SPSS.

4.2 Research Findings

Table 1: Gender

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

male

115

57.5

57.5

57.5

female

85

42.5

42.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 2 : Age

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

≤20

58

29.0

29.0

29.0

21-29

107

53.5

53.5

82.5

30-39

20

10.0

10.0

92.5

40 and above

15

7.5

7.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 3 : Monthly income

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

below rm999

31

15.5

15.5

15.5

rm1000-rm2999

34

17.0

17.0

32.5

rm3000 and above

36

18.0

18.0

50.5

no income

99

49.5

49.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

There are 15 percent male respondents in this survey which is more than female respondents (see Table Gender). There are only 27.5 percent are married. Since there is no significant difference in the marital status of respondents, the researcher ignores this demographic factor in the following cross analysis in order to avoid unnecessary biases. The respondents are composed primarily of single generation Y between ages of twenty one to twenty-nine, accounting for 53.5 percent of the respondents. This age group normally has the experience of travel with their family or friends. In terms of education, 68.8 percent of respondents are advance diploma students. Almost half of the respondents have no income because both of them are students. Although half of the percentage show that twenty one to twenty-nine age group have no income, but most of them have the experience of travel. Therefore, 7.5 percentages of the respondents over the age forty and above have their monthly income $3,000 and above, which indicates that these respondents have more consumer behavior, since their travel experience not only one compare to people who are generation Z which is 29 percentage of age under twenty. Approximately 10 percentages of the respondents have their income $1000 to $2999. In the demographic section analysis, the researcher think that generation x to baby boomer have their travel experience, therefore their experience can give a good respond of consumer needs and wants.

Table 4: Do you travel before?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

yes

191

95.5

95.5

95.5

no

9

4.5

4.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 5: Do you like to travel with?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

Family

83

41.5

41.5

41.5

Friend

102

51.0

51.0

92.5

Group

4

2.0

2.0

94.5

DIY

11

5.5

5.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 6: What is the reason for travel?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

relaxing and leisure

165

82.5

82.5

82.5

sight-seeing

18

9.0

9.0

91.5

shopping

5

2.5

2.5

94.0

adventure

12

6.0

6.0

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Section B had been analyze after section A. This section is analyzed about the general information of travel. The first question in section B is “do you travel before?’ Researcher is target on respondent who has travel before. 95.5 percent of respondents do travel before and 4.5 percent of respondents do not travel before as show on table 4. In order to get the more accurate respond, 95.5 percent will take part on this research. The second question is “do you like travel with?” The table 5 show that the result of respondents who like to travel with whom. As a result, respondent would like to travel with friends with 51 percent rate and family with 41.5 percent rate. Therefore, it was just 2 percent of respondent like to travel with group and some of the respondents would like to travel by DIY with 5.5 percent rather than travel with group. The third question is about the reason for travel. Respondents may travel with some reason and the reason can motivate them. The result show that 82.5 percent of respondent would like to travel because relaxing and leisure. There are the most reason that respondent choose. Relaxing and leisure can help to reduce the stress. Other reasons from respondents are sigh-seeing (9 percent), shopping (2.5 percent) and adventure (6 percent).

Table 7: You prefer to stay at hotel which is surrounded by?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

shopping mall

54

27.0

27.0

27.0

theme park

39

19.5

19.5

46.5

food court

35

17.5

17.5

64.0

nature park

66

33.0

33.0

97.0

others

6

3.0

3.0

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 8: Which type of accommodation will you prefer?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

resort

65

32.5

32.5

32.5

motel

6

3.0

3.0

35.5

hotel

113

56.5

56.5

92.0

apartment

15

7.5

7.5

99.5

others

1

.5

.5

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

Table 9: How do you like to receive hotel information?

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

mobile

27

13.5

13.5

13.5

internet promotion

119

59.5

59.5

73.0

email

10

5.0

5.0

78.0

brochure

44

22.0

22.0

100.0

Total

200

100.0

100.0

After asked about the general information of consumer behavior on travel, this section is analyzed about Consumer behavior in the relationship between hospitality and tourism industry. The first question is “You prefer to stay at hotel which is surrounded by?” The result shows that 33 percent of respondents choose the hotel which is surrounded by Nature Park. The second choice of respondent is shopping mall. Their behavior is shopping. Other than shopping, 19.5 percent is rate for theme park and 17.5 percent is rate for food court. Therefore, the results show that 3 percent of respondents were rate for other such as the hotel surrounding by beach. This kind of respondents would like to travel with beach sides and enjoy the sea activity. Another question in this section is “which type of accommodation will you prefer?” This question is analyze the respondent behavior would like to stay at where. The result show that 56.5 percent of respondents choose to stay in hotel. After that, 32.5 percent of respondents choose to stay in resort and it target group is most of the worker. They would like to buy the service in the resort such as spa. Other than that, 7.5 percent of respondents choose to stay in apartment and it target group is students. On the other hand, 3 percent of respondents choose to stay in motel while they are traveled. Lastly, there are 0.5 percent choose other as stay at friend house. This travel purpose is VFR. VFR is visiting friend and relatives as the reason for travel. The third question is “how do you like to receive hotel information?” The result show that 59.5 percent of respondents think that internet promotion is the better way to receive hotel information. Other than that, 22 percent of respondents will like to read brochure to know about the hotel information and 13.5 percent of respondents will like to receive it through mobile. Therefore, the small percent of respondents choose to