Tourism Today - College of Tourism and Hotel Management

Festival visitor motivation segmentationand to obtain an unusual experience which is not available in their routine life. The festivalnovelty appeals to first time visitors more greatly than the repeated ones (Uysal, et al., 1993).CULTURAL EXPLORATIONThe cultural exploration motivation is similar to novelty seeking motivation but it focusesmore on experiencing different cultures. Some tourists visit festivals as they would like toexplore or experience different customs and cultures (Chang, 2006; Crompton and McKay,1997; Formica and Uysal, 1998; Lee, et al., 2004; C. Lee, 2000; Schofield and Thompson,2007). For festivals which emphasize on the cultural demonstration or a new experience oncultural features, “cultural exploration” motivation is likely to be important, (Chang, 2006;Crompton and McKay, 1997; Formica and Uysal, 1998; Lee, et al., 2004; C. Lee, 2000;Schofield and Thompson, 2007).OTHER FESTIVAL MOTIVATIONSIn addition to the five motivations discussed above, there are various motivations for festivalsderived from different studies. For example, Scott (1996) identified natural appreciation asone of the factors for festivals after conducting a comparative study on three different festivals,including Bug Fest, Holiday Light Fest, and Maple Fest. Van Zyl and Botha (2004) dida study on Aardklop arts festival in South Africa and identified two unique motivations thatpeople participated in this community-based event, i.e., community pride and self-esteemseeking when this festival bear a responsibility to represent its culture and heritage to thepublic. Some motivations are tied to features of the specific festival and those serve as thedriving force to attract festival participants (Lee, et al., 2004; Van Zyl and Botha, 2004; Yoonand Uysal, 2005).APPLICATION OF SEGMENTATION IN FESTIVAL STUDIESMarket segmentation has been believed the key strategic concept in marketing (Myers, 1996).The term “market segmentation” was first introduced by Smith (1956) as “[segmentation] isbased upon developments on the demand side of the market and represents a rational andmore precise adjustment of product and marketing effort to consumer or user requirements”(p. 5). The strategy of market segmentation has some advantages. First, people tend to attenda variety of festivals to satisfy their various needs, tastes, attitudes, motivations, life-styles,etc. Second, when focusing on providing and marketing goods and services which appeal toparticular kinds of customers, corporate resources are more effectively and efficiently usedand therefore, contrary to the mass production, segmentation encourages the development ofcorporate which can supply relatively small markets profitably (Chisnall, 1985).Diversity among tourists reflects the reality of life and, tourist segmentation studies helpgenerate relatively homogeneous groups of tourists in terms of some criteria so that touristsand/or potential customers can be reached more effectively and efficiently (Middleton, Fyall,Morgan, and Ranchhod, 2009). In market segmentation literature, there are many basicvariables to classify the market, including social demographics, consumer attitudes towardsspecific product/service, lifestyles/psychographics, and buyer behavior (Myers, 1996; Smith,Tourism Today - Fall 2012 - Full Paper37