Segmentation of resort tourists: A study on profile differences in selection, satisfaction, opinion and preferences

This research has made an attempt to fill the vacuum in the resort tourism literature by exploring the resort tourists' views on resort selection, satisfaction, opinion and preferences. This query attempted to profile 800 resort tourists while holidaying in a resort in Australia through a well structured questionnaire focusing on their reasons for resort selection, resort satisfaction, resort opinion and resort preferences under subtitles. The research also focused on their gender, age, level of education, occupation, lifecycle category, residency, nationality, postcode, years of patronization, intimate selection choices, views on time-share and willingness to recommend their experiences. The research has identified four discernable clusters of resort tourists and identified their distinguishing characteristics on the basis of their demographics and others. Further, through a one-way ANOVA analysis the clusters are compared against each other for further understanding and clarity. While results have shown that the gender does not have much influence, lifecycle, education and age have considerable influence in segmenting the resort clientele. The four clusters were correlated with the selection, satisfaction, opinions and preferences. The results are discussed in terms of future resort developments, themes, generating resort activities focusing on young families and service quality.