VFR TRAVELLERS

Variety-seeking behaviour of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) traveler



Table of Contents

6.1 Introduction3

6.2 Survey Sample4

6.4 Respondent Demographic Characteristics5

6.4.1 Understanding hosts5

6.4.2 Influence and Local Hosts7

6.4.3 Typology, Taxonomy, and Segmentation Theory9

6.5 Country of Birth and Place of Residency11

6.5.2 Correlation Analysis21

6.5.3 ANOVA22

6.6 Prior know-how and present trip  behavior24

6.7Onsite  Behavior  Changes26

6.8 Economic Impact and Host Behavior27

6.9. Comparison of the Travel Patterns between SL-Ex Pat and SL-V travellers30

References40

Appendix42

Chapter # 6: Descriptive Analysis

6.1 Introduction

A significant and burgeoning locality of research engages residents' support for tourism development (Akis et al., 1996 and Gursoy and Rutherford, 2004). The seen and genuine financial influence on a community is a foremost person going by car of such research (Getz, 1986, Liu et al., 1987 and Walpole and Goodwin, 2000). Residents have been the subject of much study, particularly concentrated on recognising components that leverage their insights of localized influence (Akis et al., 1996, Keogh, 1990 and Lankford, 1994). This creative locality, although, has not been expanded to comprehending resident behaviors in periods of hosting VFRs, visiting associates and relatives (Seaton and Tagg 1995). Even the boost in research on this market in the past ten years, whereas it has progressed to the span of evolving typologies of the market (Lehto et al., 2001 and Moscardo et al., 2000), has concentrated on the demand (Tourists) edge, disregarding the provide side—the characteristics and behavior of the residents hosting them (McKercher 1996).

Work in the locality of community participation in tourism has not lost lightweight on the function of residents either. This research focuses on the function community constituents play in tourism development, which is actually a strategic designing function (Tosun, 1999 and Tosun, 2006). Underlying this work is the idea that community engagement varieties from tourism being “done to” local persons to tourism development conclusions being made in the local area in a participative way (Tosun 2006). Yet a gap lives between research on community participation and that focusing on tourists. This study loads up this gap by studying hosts: investigating their characteristics and behaviors, and evolving a taxonomy of them, to better realise their function and engagement in, and the communal and financial facets and significances of, amusing tourists.The classification groundwork comprises of behavioral segmentation variables as the best beginning issue for construction segments (Kotler, Bowen and Makens 2003). This furthermore comprises one of the most often utilised such bases in tourism, discovered to be helpful and productive by both academicians and practitioners (Johns and Gyimothy, 2002, Mudambi and Baum, 1997 and Sung, 2004). The justification for the exact variables selected is considered later.

 

6.2 Survey Sample

A total of 499 responses were collected from a 700 questionnaires distributed among the Sri Lankan Ex-patriates and Sri Lankan travellers visiting Australia. A convenient sample of 700 SL-Expats and Sri Lankan visitors to Australia was accessed to participate in this research. A total of only 362 useable questionnaires were utilised which were correctly filled and usable and that included 267 responses of SL-Expats and 96 Sri Lankan visitors to ...