The Role of Niche Tourism Products in Destination - Repository ...

Beaver’s (2002) tourism dictionaries/encyclopaedias further complicates a clear definition. Hall, however, offers its constituent parts
stressing that it concerns:
‘Identifying and stimulating demand, segmenting consumers into identifiable groups for targeting purposes, and providing
and promoting supply by differentiating products and services from those of competitors’ (Hall, 2003, p.18).
In the glossary of their text ‘The Business of Tourism Management’ Beech and Chadwick present niche tourism as a ‘small
specialised sector of tourism which appeals to a correspondingly tightly-defined market segment.’ (Beech and Chadwick, 2006,
p.557). However, the assumption that sectors such as eco or cultural tourism are a small segment of the tourism market, and that
they are ‘tightly-defined’, is flawed. Tarlow (2003) recognizes that there is no one single niche as people often fall into more than
one category.
Apart from the problems with defining niche tourism, a series of shortfalls and gaps also emerge in the literature. Huh and Singh in
their examination of people with disabilities as an emergent niche tourism market lament that ‘investigating niches has not yet
reached the mainstream of hospitality and tourism research’ (Huh and Singh, 2007, p. 215). To date, most research undertaken
has focused on the niche product, i.e., the facilities and marketing, with little emphasis on determining a demand side profile of
niche tourists, illustrating their tourism behaviour patterns and interest and involvement levels in participating in niche activities (Hsu
et al., 2002; Tassiopoulos and Haydam, 2008). Supply side research has tended to dominate the literature, with little insight given
into who the niche tourism consumer actually is and how to determine consumer interest in niche tourism products. Few
Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) have considered or explored the markets for their various niche products (Morgan,
Pritchard and Pride, 2002).