Committed tourists - an attractive market segment

This paper investigates the existence of highly committed tourists as an interesting market segment for the tourism industry. Tourists who see vacations as central to their lifestyle are identified as highly committed tourists and contrasted with tourists who do not attach importance to vacations. Several significant findings between the two groups are reported. Most importantly, highly committed tourists are unlikely to sacrifice their vacations and show a higher willingness to take risks, which makes them an interesting target segment, especially in times of uncertainty. Additionally, these tourists are responsible for planning holidays which allows marketers to directly speak to the decision makers. Implications for tourism marketers and future research are discussed.