Description
This research aims to treat voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL) as general lifestyle and
explore the correlation between VSL and selection preference of special interest tourism (SIT).
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Special interest tour preferences and voluntary simplicity lifestyle
Sheng Chieh-Wen Ming-J ian Shen Ming-Chia Chen
Article information:
To cite this document:
Sheng Chieh-Wen Ming-J ian Shen Ming-Chia Chen, (2008),"Special interest tour preferences and
voluntary simplicity lifestyle", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 2 Iss 4
pp. 389 - 409
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Chieh-Wen Sheng, Ming-J ian Shen, Ming-Chia Chen, (2008),"An exploratory study of types of special
interest tour preferences and preference demographic variables analysis", International J ournal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 2 Iss 3 pp. 271-284http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506180810891627
Ana M. González, Laurentino Bello, (2002),"The construct “lifestyle” in market segmentation: The
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dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090560210412700
Chieh-Wen Sheng, Ming-Chia Chen, (2013),"Tourist experience expectations: questionnaire development
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Special interest tour preferences
and voluntary simplicity lifestyle
Sheng Chieh-Wen
Chihlee Institute of Technology, Banciao City, Taiwan, Republic of China
Ming-Jian Shen
Department of Accounting Information,
Takming University of Science and Technology,
Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China, and
Ming-Chia Chen
Da-Yeh University, Taiwan, Republic of China
Abstract
Purpose – This research aims to treat voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL) as general lifestyle and
explore the correlation between VSL and selection preference of special interest tourism (SIT).
Design/methodology/approach – This research adopts a questionnaire survey. The content of the
questionnaire include questions on participants’ demographic variables, VSL, and selection preference
of SIT. After designing the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT, this research treats the tourists
in the Taiwan Guandu bird-watching area as the targets and distributes the questionnaires. This
research adopts systematic sampling for questionnaire distribution.
Findings – The following results are found: a positive correlation between selection preference of SIT
and VSL; females are mostly allocated as the recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT,
the educational level of diverse interest type people preferring SIT tend to be higher, and these people
have a more signi?cant VSL; people who are the low degree of identi?cation type with voluntary
simplicity reveal almost the least scores in terms of all kinds of traveling preference, whereas complete
involvement type individuals show a higher degree of preference.
Research limitations/implications – This questionnaire is not exclusive. In other words, the
respondents can provide extremely high, medium, or lowscores for the preference for any kind of trips.
Thus, the respondents’ real preference sequence cannot be distinguished. Future studies can modify
this questionnaire. The questionnaire of selection preference of SIT designed by this research mainly
followed the SIT itineraries promoted on traveling websites and upon certain processes. Thus, this
questionnaire content is based on the view of the supply end.
Originality/value – This research follows the suggestions of McKercher and Chan, and after
internet searching, the method imitates content analysis to establish a questionnaire with 18 questions
with respect to the selection preference of SIT. Through factor analysis, the researchers select four
kinds of selection preference of SIT, including traveling preference of recreation and entertainment,
natural ecology, physical exploration, and history and art. In addition, this research also uses
con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the convergent validity of the VSL questionnaire developed by
the authors (2005).
Keywords Tourism, Lifestyles, Taiwan
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Since the 1980s, when the living standard of consumers who are traveling is upgraded
and these people are having more and more tour experiences, many tourists have
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
389
Received May 2007
Revised September 2007
Accepted October 2007
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 2 No. 4, 2008
pp. 389-409
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180810909005
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started to demand higher tourist autonomy and trips that satisfy more diverse
purposes. Therefore, the tourism companies begin to adjust their product patterns to
meet the tourists’ different preferences for trip activities or destinations, and design a
series of itineraries with special interests. Such tourism is generally called special
interest tourism (SIT). The tourism companies expect to satisfy the individual needs of
different tourists through the design of this type of tourism (Gladwell, 1990; Ryel and
Grasse, 1991; Hall and Weiler, 1992; Douglas et al., 2001; Trauer, 2006; Tsaur and Shu,
2003).
With the rise of SIT, studies this behavior are also increasing. However, McKercher
and Chan (2005) ?nd that these many past researches studies measuring the tourists’
preferences by the activities the tourists are having, or are going to have, and neglect
that behavior does not equal preference. Trauer (2006) also indicates that, since tourism
has some experiential and emotional natures so Trauer argue that the tourism is not
measure only by behavioral indicators, such as participation in certain tours.
Therefore, this research will follow the suggestion of McKercher and Chan, and use the
questionnaire design of selection preference of SIT to directly inquire the tourists’
preferences by survey method and then proceed with preference allocation by factor
analysis.
Past studies relate to tourism have tended to analyze the tourists’ lifestyles.
The idea is that people’s feelings and attitudes toward tourism will re?ect on various
affairs in daily lives (Kuentzel, 2000). However, many studies analyze speci?c lifestyle.
In other words, the researchers explore the lifestyle relate to tourism products, such as
the analysis of Mayo (1975) and Gladwell (1990) on tourists in national parks or the
allocation and market segmentation study of Tsaur and Shu (2003) on the lifestyle
of tourists preferring artistic, natural, active trips, and so on. Although this kind of
research on speci?c lifestyles can lead to a higher degree of correlation between
lifestyle and speci?c products, the application is limited since these researches only
re?ect one part of consumers’ lifestyles.
The studies of Yuan et al. (2005), Trauer and Ryan (2005) and McKercher and Chan
(2005) ?nd that tourist diet preference, expectations of interpersonal relationships, and
attitudes toward the tourism policy of the company will be connected with tourism
selection. This ?nding means that more general lifestyle, or the activities, interests, or
opinions include more on individual living aspects, will also in?uence or re?ect
people’s will of enduring involvement in tourism (Trauer, 2006). Therefore, this
research will focus on more general lifestyles and will explore their relation with
selection preference of SIT from the view of market segmentation.
In general lifestyles, one kind emphasizes simplicity, pursuing internality, and
advocating environmental protection, and is called voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL).
Since the middle of the 1990s, VSL has been identi?ed with, and carry out by, more and
more people (Trend Institute, 1994; Johnston and Burton, 2002). The study of
Zavestoski (2002), Shaw and Newholm (2002) and Housel (2006) ?nd out that these
people with voluntary simplicity (VS) tend to have a higher degree of consuming
autonomy and expectations on self-actualization. Since the people preferring SIT have
a higher degree of tourism autonomy, in terms of psychological characteristics, those
preferring SIT seem to share certain common points with the ones of VS. Therefore,
this research chose to treat VSL as general lifestyle and explore the correlation between
VSL and selection preference of SIT.
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Literature review
Selection preference of SIT
Douglas et al. (2001, p. xvii) de?ne SIT as “a kind of customized recreational or tourism
experience with speci?c interests presented by an individual or group.” So-called
speci?c interests include the preference for the activities, places, scenery, and even the
emotional attachment to the companions (Hall and Weiler, 1992; Trauer and Ryan,
2005). Douglas et al. (2001) also indicate that the rise of SIT is the result of diversity of
recreational purposes. From a macro-level view (environmental and tourism supply
and demand) and micro-level view (personal recognition, behaviour, and emotional
system), Trauer (2006), respectively, explores the rise of SIT. As for the micro-level
view, Trauer (2006) ?nds out that the lifestyles of the tourists will affect the centrality
of the tourism topic, or the importance of the tourism topic for tourists. Secondly,
Trauer (2006) also argues that this centrality is one of the dimensions of enduring
involvement. So-called enduring involvement meant that the tourism value or meaning
will extend to various life aspects beyond tourism. This kind of enduring involvement
will change the tourists’ emotional systems for SIT and further result in their
preference for different SIT. Graham et al. (2007) Discussion focuses on marketing
implications for special interest wine tourists and on conceptual challenges relate to
high-end market research. Finally, Trauer also indicates that, although personal
preference can establish market demand, the environmental factors and supply and
demand of the tourism market shall still be considered in order to completely describe
the causes and background of the rise of the SIT market.
Since SIT rose because of the speci?c interests show by an individual or group,
SIT also re?ects the tourists’ awakening for recreational autonomic consciousness and
selection for recreational activities. Regardless of quality or quantities, they are more
cautious and active than before (Douglas et al., 2001; Marnburg and Mykletun, 2002;
Trauer, 2006; Tsaur and Shu, 2003). Therefore, when designing SIT, tourism
companies shall hold a consumer-oriented spirit and manage proper market
segmentation in order to understand the demands and preference of different travelers.
The purpose of so-called market segmentation is to segment the market into different
consumer subsets, according to segmentation variables, in order to allow each subset to
become the target market of a speci?c marketingcombination. Thus, market segmentation
is the proper tool to distinguish different consuming groups in order to look for market
opportunities (Kotler, 1980; van Raaij and Verhallen, 1994). Kotler and Armstrong (1991)
indicate that the market segmentation variables adopt by common studies can be
generallydividedintofour categories, includinggeographic, demographic, psychographic,
and behavioristic variables. Among others, demographic variables could be considered as
the earliest and most common segmentation variables. However, since consumers’
behavior is becoming complicated, only segmenting the consumers by demographic
variable will not provide in-depth understanding on their behavior. Thus, the scholars
mainly suggest that these researches shall combine psychographic segmentation
variables, such as personality characteristic, social status, vacationing preference, and
lifestyle, to allocate the consumers of products such as SIT so that they can have a more
abundant and deeper understanding toward the consumers (Mayo, 1975; Schewe and
Calantone, 1978; Ryel and Grasse, 1991; Andereck and Galdwell, 1994; Zins, 1998; Tsaur
andShu, 2003). As for demographic variables become a kindof descriptive variable, which
describe the population characteristic of each subset in the market (Wu, 2001).
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Generally speaking, personal values and lifestyle are two variables commonly used in
psychographic variables (Tsaur and Shu, 2003). Personal values mean a set of highly
subjective concept systems that re?ect on personal needs, attitudes, interests, preferences,
and motivation. These values further in?uence an individual’s consumption behavior
(Madrigal and Kahle, 1994). Lifestyle refer to the consumers’ life style (Kotler, 2000;
Blackwell et al., 2001; Wu, 2001), includingthe process of practicingthoughts. This ?nding
means the personal daily activities re?ect by the consumers and their interests and
opinions toward the affairs with the cultivation of social culture, after the transformation
of values and attitudes. Thus, personal values are a kind of subjective conceptual
combination, which is not easy to be observed. This combination tends to re?ect on
personal lifestyles. Therefore, people may indirectly access an individual’s value system
through the measurement of lifestyle (Hawkins et al., 2001). Thus, there are more and more
studies treating lifestyle as variable and managing market segmentation on products,
especially the ones with psychological grati?cation, such as tourism or artistic
appreciation, which are more suitable to be segmented by lifestyles (Engel et al., 1984).
Besides market segmentation, many studies access the various properties and
characteristics of the people of SITthrough different methods. For instance, the study by
Sorensen (1993) ?nds that the people of SITusually do not prefer a hotel brand; instead,
they are fond of a carefully select professional guide, smaller traveling groups,
a customized itinerary, or even remote or dif?cult destinations. Before exploring various
types of SIT, Douglas et al. (2001) point out by a generalized view that the people of SIT
are mostly greeners, namely the tourists with sustainable consciousness. In other words,
most of the people of SIT tend to identify with environmental protection.
Although Douglas et al. (2001) propose many examples to support their statements;
Marnburg and Mykletun (2002) hold a suspicious standpoint and consider that these
travelers of different special topics are mostly greeners? Does the tourism of different
special topics thus have to be involved in environmental appeals? Besides, Marnburg
and Mykletun (2002) also point out that Douglas et al. (2001) are from Australia where
the county is more proper to combine tourism with environmental issues. However, for
the tourism environment of other countries, the situations are not necessarily the same.
Thus, further evidence is still needed to con?rm if the people of SIT in other countries
are mostly greeners.
Voluntary simplicity lifestyle
As above, although the relation is still not clear as to whether the people of SIT are
equal to greeners, the rise and gradual importance of environmental consciousness is
actually the common consensus of most people in society. With the awakening of
environmental consciousness, a kind of lifestyle called VS is becoming the trend.
The earliest appearance of the concept of VS is around 1936, when Gregg ?rst
interprets the simple lifestyle proposed by Gandhi from an academic perspective.
By the 1970s, this kind of lifestyle is gradually valued and resulted in the discussions
of many scholars (Leonard-Barton, 1981). However, afterwards, the call of this lifestyle
is quiet until the middle of the 1990s, when VS is again noticed and became popular
(Zavestoski, 2002).
According to Gregg’s (1936) de?nition, VS included the meanings of internal attitude
and external experience. Internal aspect meant an individual’s internal sincerity
and loyalty and he is willing to re?ect them in his lifestyle in different aspects.
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Thus, based on this de?nition, the following scholars, respectively, propose their views
on VS. Much research indicates that VSL is basically a kind of re?ection of internal
abundant living attitude. This kind of internal attitude include self-re?ection, pursuit of
pure spirit and high degree of self-expectation and requirement on moral and spiritual
growth or self-actualization; on the other hand, VS also emphasize external simplicity
and self-discipline, and advocate environmental protection in order to facilitate the
harmony between human beings and ecology when reaching the balance of their own
physical and mental states (Elgin, 1981; Shama, 1985; Shi, 1985; Trend Institute, 1994;
Andrews, 1997; Mazza, 1997; Johnston and Burton, 2002).
Why are people willing to adopt this kind of lifestyle? Zavestoski (2002) indicates
that we may explain the ?rst rise of VS in the 1970s as a result of economic de?ation.
However, after the middle of the 1990s, VS becomes popular again. The major reason
shall be that people gradually felt disappointed and suspicious of materialism, since
during the process of consumption, they tend to feel that, although consumption led to
certain happiness, they also lost some authenticity; thus, the people gradually resent
and become lost in the mass consumption advocated by materialism and the
complicate and luxurious lifestyles of modern people. As to the expression of living
attitudes, people tend to support the appeals with an anti-consumption orientation,
such as VSL (Etzioni, 2004).
Although Zavestoski (2002) allocates VS as a kind of anti-consumption attitude,
some studies point out that the people with VS are not completely against
consumption; instead, they chose proper consumption. For example, these people
prefer computers over jewelries. They are more concerned about how the products are
made instead of the value of the brand of products or whether the brand meets their
own positions and identities (Craig-Lees and Hill, 2002). In addition, the research of
Shaw and Newholm (2002), as well as Housel (2006), indicates that people with VS may
maintain, but modify, their consumption. These simple livers still need some
technological ?xes such as the internet, cell phones, electric appliances, information
products, cars, and so on. However, they hope to purchase some more ef?cient or
energy-saving products.
Through the above description, these researches ?nd that people with VS are not
necessarily against consumerism; instead, they are a group of consumers with more
self-consciousness and they expect to carry out some of their ideals (such as
environmental appeals) through consumption. They even hope to reach self-awakening
by consumption. For example, these individuals harmonize their physical and mental
states by organic diet or follow their internal moral compulsion to purchase products of
the corporate with social responsibility (Shaw and Newholm, 2002).
Some of the past studies attempted to compare the life characteristics of people with
VS. For instance, Elgin and Mitchell (1997) allocates the people with VS into four
categories, including the most devote people with VS. These people tend to dress
simply, recycle, eat natural food, ride bicycles to work, love individual trips, value the
family, and often participate in meditation or growth groups, and so on. As to other
types of consumers, according to the VS degrees, Elgin and Mitchell (1997) allocates
them into: people with partial VS, people identifying with VS, and people against VS.
Most are those identifying with VS. These people basically identify with this lifestyle,
but cannot generally carry out VS in life behavior due to certain reasons. On the other
hand, Etzioni (2004) argues that, although, in terms of life characteristics, some people
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are downshifters who are willing to give up great incomes, reduce shopping desire, and
have frugal lives, these people are essentially different from those with VS. The most
signi?cant difference is that the people with VS tend to be more devoted than the
downshifters in terms of the internal meanings of moral issues and spiritual growth,
including concern about environmental or social issues and self-actualization. In other
words, compare with simple downshifters, those with VS value more the profound and
active internal meanings behind external simple behavior.
Iwata (1997, 1999) designs the measurement tool of VS. According to the view of
Shama and Wisenblit, he allocates VS into ?ve dimensions, including material
simplicity, human scale, self-determination, ecological responsibility, and personal
growth, and further established the questionnaire of VSL. Subsequently, Iwata
proceeds with factor analysis, respectively, on college students and women, and
divided VSL into four factors: VSL, cautious attitudes in shopping, acceptance of
self-suf?ciency, and rejection of highly develop functions of products.
Although Iwata (1997, 1999) designs the measurement tool of VSL, he also indicates
that the ?ve dimensions of VS proposed by Shama and Wisenblit cannot properly
measure complete VSL. Therefore, in the study, Iwata adopts a narrower de?nition of
VS. In other words, he only focuses on the low-consumption and material-suf?ciency
external behavior of VS instead of the measurement of their internal meanings,
including the environmental consciousness or moral concerns. Secondly, Iwata’s
research targets, regardless of whether college students or women, do not include
general consumers, such as male workers. The accumulated explanatory variance of
Iwata’s factor analysis results is not high (29 and 32 percent). This ?nding means that
these four factors cannot completely explain VSL.
Since the study of Iwata (1997, 1999) is still insuf?cient, Sheng et al. (2005) follow the
principle of AIO and combine many scholars’ de?nitions of VS to design another
questionnaire of VSL. Since the design process of the said questionnaire is cautious and
the scale is broader, the current research adopts this questionnaire to measure VSL and
use con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the validity. With regard to the
measurement of selection preference of SIT, since past studies are lacking, this
research designs the questionnaire and then proceeds with explorative factor analysis.
Finally, the research explores the correlation between these two concepts: Selection
Preference of SIT and VSL.
Method
Hypothesis establishment
VSL relates to certain consuming preferences or behaviors. For example, the research
of Sheng et al. (2005) and Brown and Kasser (2005) show that people with VS tend to
prefer green consumption or have ecologically responsible behavior. The study of
Elgin and Mitchell (1997) ?nd that people with VS tend to prefer individual trips and
hope to have more traveling autonomy.
Since people with VS tend to long for more traveling autonomy, SIT is a kind of
customized itinerary arrangement for complying with the autonomic consciousness of
the tourists (Douglas et al., 2001; Tsaur and Shu, 2003). In addition, Douglas et al. (2001)
argue that most people with SIT have a higher degree of environmental consciousness,
which is actually one of the critical dimensions of VSL (Etzioni, 2004; Brown and
Kasser, 2005; Sheng et al., 2005). Therefore, people with SIT and those with VS seem to
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share certain common points in terms of environmental consciousness and traveling
autonomy. In addition, Trauer (2006) points out that the tourists’ preference for SIT
will be in?uenced by their lifestyles. Thus, this research proposes that:
H1. There is signi?cantly positive correlation between the selection preference of
SIT and VSL.
On the other hand, this research also plan to proceed with market segmentation analysis
to ?nd out different types of people preferring SIT and VS, and compare the differences
in terms of demographic and psychographic variables in order to propose the relate
marketing suggestion. Thus, this research treats the selection preference of SITand VSL
as the variables and use managed cluster analysis on the participants. Subsequently, the
researchers use four hypotheses to con?rmthe differences in terms of demographic and
psychographic variables of different types of people preferring SIT or VS:
H2. Different clusters of people preferring SIT have signi?cantly different VSLs.
H3. Different clusters of people following VSL have signi?cantly different
selection preferences for SIT.
H4. Different clusters of people preferring SIT have signi?cantly different
demographic variables.
H5. Different clusters of people following VSL have signi?cantly different
demographic variables.
Questionnaire design and research targets
This research adopts a questionnaire survey. The content of the questionnaire include
questions on participants’ demographic variables, VSL, and selection preference of
SIT. Regarding VSL, the research uses a ?ve-point scale questionnaire designed by
Sheng et al. (2005). The questionnaire mainly follow the questions developed by
Leonard-Barton (1981) and Iwata (1997, 1999), with more literature de?nitions and
based on the AIO principle. At the beginning, there are too many questions in the
questionnaire. However, after the feedback of the pretest, the test on the consumers of
The Body Shop, and item and factor analysis, there are 7 factors with 26 questions:
value promotion, serious attitude, health consciousness, impersonal share, nature
approaching, self-suf?ciency, and simplicity. Since the accumulated explanatory
variance of each factor in the questionnaire is 64 percent, which is more than the VS
questionnaire developed by Iwata (1997, 1999). The said questionnaire include internal
attitude and external experience, and this questionnaire can be more likely to re?ect
Gregg’s (1936) basic de?nition of VS, compared with Iwata’s measurement, which
merely focus on external simplicity instead of internal abundance.
As for the selection preference of SIT, empirical studies relating to this aspect are rare.
Even though there are some connect studies, these studies mostly measure the tourists’
preferences by the activities they participate in, such as the research of Plummer et al.
(2005) and Tsaur and Shu (2003) and so on. However, McKercher and Chan (2005) ?nd in
their study that the tourists’ motivations to join in SIT are very diverse, and the
participants are not necessarily fond of the itinerary. Sometimes, they may be forced to
participate in the activities hold by the companies. Thus, McKercher and Chan (2005)
suggest that, in order to access to the tourists’ preferences, it is better to ask the
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tourists directly. Therefore, this research designs the questionnaire through the following
process and asks direct questions on the participants’ selection preferences of SIT:
.
Use SIT as keywords to search for the web pages through MSN and Google
search engines.
.
Following content analysis and information ?nd in these web pages,
respectively, selected the ?rst ten with the complete term of SIT and con?rms
that the web pages are related to tourism introduction.
.
Among the 20 web pages select, reorganize and list various itineraries of SIT,
such as team township trip or parent-children trip.
.
Invite three professionals with a certain degree of understanding of, or frequently
participation in, SIT. The professionals include one ten-year member of a
timeshare resort, one college professor, and one writer. Researchers ask them to
follow the descriptive de?nition of SIT and combine the similar types of SIT list
above.
.
According to different SIT combinations, the researchers design a selection
preference questionnaire with a ?ve-point scale. For example, If I have available
budget and time, I will be willing to participate in the tourism relate to history
such as museum trip, nostalgia trip or historic spot and temple trip, and so on.
.
Invite six university students to give semantic feedback with regard to the initial
questionnaire to ensure that the questions in the questionnaire are easy to
understand in order to increase their face validity.
After designing the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT, this research treats the
tourists in the Taiwan Guandu bird-watching area as the targets and distributes the
questionnaires. These targets are chosen because this bird-watching trip contains
ecological and environmental consciousness. Environmental consciousness is very
likely to be the issue concerned by the people of SIT and VS (Douglas et al., 2001;
Etzioni, 2004; Brown and Kasser, 2005; Sheng et al., 2005). Thus, these targets may be
able to accept and understand the questionnaire, and there will be higher face validity.
In addition, since the said area has a clear scope and regular entrance and exit, it is
bene?cial for questionnaire distribution and return.
This research adopts systematic sampling for questionnaire distribution. In four
weekends, two or three people form a group and distribute one questionnaire at the
interval of every 15 tourists from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. (except for lunch and break
time). Small gifts are given to encourage participation. Since this research will proceed
with factor analysis, and the study of Yeh and Lawrence (1996) point out that if the
numbers of samples in factor analysis can be over 200, the reliability of the results will
considerably increase, 300 valid return questionnaires are treated as the target. The
population statistics are as follows. About 37.0 percent are married and 52.7 percent
are female. A total of 74.3 percent are college graduates, with 25.7 percent having less
than a college degree. About 51.0 percent of people in the sample are religious. About
56 percent of respondents are in the 21-30 age category, with 22 percent in the 31-40 age
category, 11.0 percent in the 41 and older age category, and 11.0 percent less than 20.
About 8.3 percent have personal monthly income over 60,000 NT dollars, 58.0 percent
receive less than 30,000 NT dollars, and 33.7 percent are in the 30,000-60,000 personal
monthly income group.
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Results
Factor analysis and reliability and validity analytical results
First of all, this research proceeds with factor analysis on selection preference of SIT.
Through Principle Component Analysis, and according to the criterion of
Eigenvalue . 1, the researchers obtain four factors with 18 questions. The
accumulated explanatory variance is 56.2 percent (Table I). Subsequently,
this research employ varimax-rotation to acquire the factor loading of each question,
and select the ones over 0.45 as the questions of the factor (Hair et al., 1998). The
researchers then treat two questions with the highest factor loading as the base of the
factor name and, respectively, named Factors 1-4 as: recreation and entertainment
traveling preference, natural ecology traveling preference, physical exploration
traveling preference, and history and art traveling preference (when mentioning these
factors in the following sections, the term traveling preference may be omitted).
After factor analysis, this research then manages reliability analysis. The
researchers ?rst employ Cronbach a value to examine the internal consistency of each
factor of VSL. The a value of adaptive and simplicity is 0.71, while it is 0.71 for serious
attitude, 0.80 for nature approaching, 0.76 for health consciousness, 0.67 for impersonal
share, 0.87 for value promotion, and 0.78 for self-suf?ciency. This research also
Factors Eigenvalue
Content of questions: if I have
available budget and time, I will be
willing to participate in. . . Factor loading
Recreation and entertainment
traveling preference
5.48 Food culture trip, such as delicacy
trip, wine township, tea township,
or coffee trips
0.73
Recreational trip, such as island
vacation, amusement park, or
parent-children trips
0.71
Natural ecology traveling
preference
1.96 Nature-related trip, such as ocean,
?eld, forest, river, gorge, or
national park trips
0.83
Animal watching-related trip, such
as butter?y watching, whale
watching, ?re?y, bird-watching, or
frog-watching trips
0.80
Physical exploration traveling
preference
1.49 Trips of physical sports, such as
skiing, canoeing, mountain
climbing and hiking, sur?ng, or
bike trips
0.84
Trips of adventure around the
world, such as world searching or
danger zone trips
0.73
History and art traveling
preference
1.20 History-related trip, such as
museum, nostalgia or historical
spots, and temple trips
0.74
Art-related trip, such as music, ?ne
art, or architecture trips
0.73
Note: The accumulated explanatory variance of the four factors is 56.2 percent
Table I.
Factor analytical result of
selection preference of
SIT
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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con?rms the internal consistency of each factor of selection preference of SIT. The
results reveal that the Cronbach a value of recreation and entertainment is 0.75, natural
ecology is 0.79, physical exploration is 0.68, and history and art is 0.70. Thus, this
research ?nds that most of the Cronbach a values are close to or more than 0.70. Thus,
the questionnaire is reliable to a certain degree (Cuieford, 1965; Nunnally, 1978).
In addition to reliability analysis, this research also proceeds with con?rmatory
factor analysis on each factor of VSL to examine the convergent validity of each factor.
After the estimation through Maximum likelihood, the researchers obtained the x
2
value of 945.4 ( p-value , 0.0001) and degrees of freedom x
2
is 3. According to the
view of Joreskog and Sorbom (1986) and Chow (2002), the result shows that the
propriety of the model is ?ne. In other words, the convergent validity of each factor is
acceptable. As for the selection preference of SIT, after factor analysis, this research
does not further collect data for con?rmatory factor analysis. However, after observing
the correlation matrix among the factors, this statistics ?nd that the related factors are
not high (between 0.16 and 0. 31). This ?nding means that there is certain
discriminative validity among the factors.
Cluster analytical result
With regard to cluster analysis on the participants, this research divides these clusters
into two sections. First, according to the seven factors of VSL, the researchers allocate
the participants to different clusters of people with VS. In addition, according to the
four factors of selection preference of SIT, the participants are allocated to different
clusters of people preferring SIT. With regard to the decision of the number of clusters,
the researchers mainly follow the suggestion of Chow (2002) and employ cubic
clustering criterion (CCC) to ?nd the most proper number of clusters. Finally, the VS
group is divided into four groups (CCC ¼ 7.064) and different people of SIT are
allocated into three groups (CCC ¼ 8).
Subsequently, with regard to different clusters of people with VS, this research
proceeds with ANOVA on each cluster and related factors, and named the clusters
according to the results. Table II refers to the ANOVA results of the cluster of people
with VS and each factor of VS. According to analysis ?nd that the averages of the
different factors in Cluster 2 are higher and those of Cluster 3 are signi?cantly lower.
Thus, Cluster 2 is named complete involvement (114 people) and Cluster 3 is named
low degree of identi?cation (43 people). As for Cluster 1, since the averages of different
factors are not low, particularly in terms of adaptive and simplicity, health
consciousness and value promotion which are close to those of complete involvement
type, this cluster is called healthy and aggressive type (34 people). Finally, the scores of
the factors in Cluster 4 are between 3 and 4. This ?nding means that the participants in
this cluster have a medium degree of identi?cation with each VS factor. However, from
Table II, this statistics result that, although people with VS in Cluster 4 reveal lower
scores than the complete involvement type in terms of self-suf?ciency, the scores are
still higher than those of healthy and aggressive type. Thus, this cluster is named
balance and self-suf?ciency (109 people).
This research also conduct ANOVA on the relate factors and clusters of people
preferring SIT and named the clusters according to the results. Table III refers to the
analytical results. The averages of different factors in Cluster 3 are higher. This
information shows that participants in Cluster 3 have diverse preferences for SIT from
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Table II.
ANOVA results on
clusters of people with VS
and the related factors
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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recreation and entertainment to physical exploration. Thus, the researchers named this
group diverse interest (145 people). The scores of the factors in Cluster 2 are not high
and only the score on recreation and entertainment is close to that of the diverse
interest type. Thus, these participants are called recreation and entertainment type (34
people). Finally, with regard to Cluster 1, according to the averages of the factors, these
participants did not particularly prefer any kinds of SIT, and are named general and
balanced traveling preference people (121 people).
Validation result of hypotheses
Table IV provides the results of the correlation analysis on H1. Since the factors of VSL
are basically part of the lifestyle, this research adds its total scores. Since selection
preference of SIT is the re?ection on different types of SIT, logically, this part is not
suitable for being added scores. Thus, the results in Table IV show that there is
signi?cant and positive correlation between different types of selection preference of
SIT and VSL. Thus, H1 is supported. However, if this research further analyze the
factors of VSL, the analysis ?nd in Table IV that traveling preference in recreation and
entertainment, and serious attitude, health consciousness, impersonal share, and
self-suf?ciency in VS are not signi?cantly correlated. In other words, travelers
preferring recreation and entertainment are not special in terms of serious attitude,
health consciousness, impersonal share, and self-suf?ciency within lifestyle aspects.
In addition, this research also recognizes that health consciousness has a signi?cantly
positive correlation only with natural ecology traveling preference. This means that
this aspect is not closely connects with people’s selection preference of SIT.
Tables V and VI show the analytical results of H2 and H4, which mainly explore
the characteristics after clustering the people preferring different SIT’s. H2 is accepted
since the people preferring diverse interest type SIT has signi?cantly higher degrees of
VSL. In addition, H4 is partially supported since there are only some demographic
variables reveal to have signi?cant differences on the clusters preferring different SIT:
the educational level of diverse interest and general and balanced types are higher, and
there are more females among the recreation and entertainment type SIT individuals.
H3 is focused on segmenting different people with VS and exploring the differences of
their selection preference of SIT. The result is partially established, as shown in Table VII.
Those witha lowdegree of identi?cationof VShave the least preferences ondifferent trips.
People with complete involvement have higher degrees of SIT preference. In addition,
the people of healthy and aggressive type VS reveal higher degrees of history and art
traveling preferences compare with the balanced and self-suf?cient type. The other aspect
has no signi?cant difference from the balanced and self-suf?cient type.
Recreation and
entertainment
Natural
ecology
Physical
exploration
History
and art
Cluster 1: general and balanced 3.70 3.54 3.59 3.40
Cluster 2: recreation and entertainment 4.46 3.67 2.81 3.00
Cluster 3: diverse interests 4.54 4.44 4.16 4.23
Comparison among clusters 2 ¼ 3 . 1 3 . 1 ¼ 2 3 . 1 . 2 3 . 1 . 2
Note: The comparison among the clusters is the reorganization of pair comparison, which treated 0.05
as signi?cant standard
Table III.
ANOVA results
on the clusters of people
preferring SIT
and the related factors
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Table IV.
Correlation analysis on
various selection
preferences of SIT and
VSL
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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Table V.
ANOVA analysis on
different clusters of
people preferring SIT
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H5 is based on the demographic differences of different types of people with VS. The
result is partially established, as shown Tables VI and VII. The complete involvement
type and healthy and aggressive type people with VS reveal signi?cantly higher scores
on age and income than the other two clusters. With regard to religion (Table VI), the
complete involvement type, balanced and self-suf?cient type, healthy and aggressive
type, and low degree of identi?cation type people with VS reveal sequential religion
ration from high to low.
Conclusion and suggestion
Research conclusions
The past studies relating to SIT mostly consider the tourists’ preferences according to
the trips they participated in. McKercher and Chan (2005) ?nd out that recognizing their
preferences based only on trips might lead to signi?cant errors. Thus, McKercher and
Chan (2005) claim that, in order to access to the tourists’ traveling preferences, a way is
better to directly explore the topic using a preference questionnaire. Thus, this research
follows the suggestions of McKercher and Chan, and after internet searching, the
method imitates content analysis to establish a questionnaire with 18 questions with
respect to the selection preference of SIT. Through factor analysis, the researchers select
four kinds of selection preference of SIT, including traveling preference of recreation and
entertainment, natural ecology, physical exploration, and history and art.
In addition, this research also uses con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the
convergent validity of the VSL questionnaire developed by Sheng et al. (2005). After
con?rming the measurement tool for VSL and developing the questionnaire of selection
preference for SIT, the researchers validated the hypotheses. The results and
descriptions are reorganized as follows.
H1 is established when any type of selection preference of SIT is more obvious, the
orientation of its VSL will be more signi?cant. H2 is established too. Regarding the
different types of people preferring SIT, Diverse interest type people preferring SIThave a
signi?cantly higher degree of VSL. The educational level of diverse interest and general
and balanced type people preferring SIT is higher. There are more females among the
recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT. H3-H5 are partially established.
Actual vs expected
numbers of
male/female
Actual vs expected
numbers of
married/unmarried
Actual vs expected
numbers with/without
religion
Sex
* *
Marital state Religion
General and balanced 69/52 vs 57/64 44/77 vs 45/76 57/64 vs 62/59
Recreation and entertainment 5/29 vs 16/18 16/18 vs 13/21 21/13 vs 17/17
Diverse interests 68/77 vs 69/76 52/93 vs 54/91 75/70 vs 74/71
Comparison of cluster ratio 1 . 3 . 2 2 . 1 . 3 2 . 3 . 1
Sex Marital state Religion
*
Healthy and aggressive 14/20 vs 16/18 18/16 vs 13/21 17/17 vs 17/17
Complete involvement 63/51 vs 54/60 45/69 vs 43/71 63/51 vs 58/56
Low degree of identi?cation 17/26 vs 20/23 12/31 vs 16/27 17/26 vs 22/21
Balanced and self-suf?cient 48/61 vs 52/57 37/72 vs 41/68 56/53 vs 56/53
Comparison among clusters 2 . 4 . 1 . 3 1 . 2 . 4 . 3 2 . 4 . 1 . 3
Notes:
*
p-value ,0.05;
* *
p-value , 0.001
Table VI.
x
2
analysis on different
clusters of people
preferring SIT/VSL
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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Table VII.
ANOVA analysis on
different clusters of
people with VSL
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As for the different types of people with VS, Lowdegree of identi?cation type people with
VS revealed almost the least traveling preference in terms of natural ecology, physical
exploration, and history and art. Those in the complete involvement type have a higher
degree of preference. Healthyandaggressive type people withVSreveal a higher degree in
terms of history and art traveling preference, compared with the balanced and
self-suf?cient type. The other aspect has no signi?cant difference from the balanced and
self-suf?cient type. The complete involvement type and healthy and aggressive type
people with VS reveal a signi?cantly higher degree than the other two clusters in terms of
age and income. Complete involvement, balanced and self-suf?cient, healthy and
aggressive, and low degree of identi?cation type people with VS reveal a sequential
religious population ratio from high to low.
Discussions and suggestions
Although certain logic and systematic characteristics occur during the process when this
research designs the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT and reliability and
validity are con?rmed, the questionnaire still reveals insuf?cient aspects. For example,
this questionnaire is not exclusive. In other words, the respondents can provide extremely
high, medium, or lowscores for the preference for any kindof trips. Thus, the respondents’
real preference sequence cannot be distinguished. For example, in Table III, general and
balanced and diverse interest types revealed stable, high or medium levels of preference
for different types of SIT, and the researchers cannot distinguish which is their favorite.
Future studies can modify this questionnaire. For example, they can ask the respondents
to arrange the preference of each questionor require the respondents to distribute funds to
the trips they are willingto participate inwith ?xed and limited traveling funds. However,
this may reduce the participants’ willingness to return the questionnaire, increasing the
dif?culty in analyzing and further in?uencing the questionnaire and research validity.
The questionnaire of selection preference of SIT designed by this research mainly
followed the SITitineraries promoted on traveling websites and upon certain processes.
Thus, this questionnaire content is based on the view of the supply end. However,
according to the de?nition of Douglas et al. (2001) of SIT, SIT shall be a kind of
customized traveling experience. If researchers allow the customers to propose their
needs and further access their selection preferences of SIT, these researches result are
more likely to meet the signi?cance of customization. Thus, future studies may consider
using methods such as focus forum to have an in-depth understanding of customers’
needs, and combine the questionnaire content of this research to develop the
questionnaire to include both the supply and demand ends. This way will be more likely
to comply with Trauer’s (2006) observation and suggestion since he indicates that the
rise of SIT shall consider the supply and demand of the market at the same time.
Since the hypothesis validation used in this research is mostly related to market
segmentation, the aspect is mainly explored through marketing signi?cance. First of
all, through the correlation analysis, H1 is established. There is positive correlation
between selection preference of SIT and VSL. Therefore, when an individual has a
greater preference for any type of SIT, his daily activities, interest in the affairs, and
opinion expression will be more likely to reveal VSL, such as preferring simple and
practical things or being willing to deliver the importance of self-re?ection. Therefore,
the companies offering SIT can consider treating VSL as the call to design proper
marketing activities to attract the potential customers drawn to SIT.
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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As for H2-H5, the validation results are discussed in two parts. The ?rst part is related
to different types of people preferring SIT, including general and balanced, recreation and
entertainment, and diverse interest type people preferring SIT, and the difference of their
properties. According to the research ?nd out that females are mostly allocated as
the recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT. Thus, companies focusing
on the products of recreation and entertainment type SIT are suggested to involve more
resources in the development of female customers. In addition, the educational level of
diverse interest type people preferring SIT (the group preferring various types of SIT)
tend to be higher and these people have a more signi?cant VSL. This ?nding means that
if tourism companies operate more than one kind of SIT, customers with the most
potential or consuming will should be these tourists with diverse interests. Since the
educational level of these tourists tend to be higher, companies shall focus on the higher
education market, such as posting their advertisements in magazines or newspaper
instead of TV commercials since the report indicates that people with higher educational
background preferred print media (Katz et al., 1973). Since special interest tourists tend to
have a VSL, this journey is suggested to add more activities or itineraries that increase the
focus on internal signi?cance, simplicity, and an environmental spirit. For example, the
tour guide can describe more meaningful historical stories relate to the trips (Sorensen,
1993), arrange some delicious and healthy food, provide high-quality, simple and
practical small gifts, or arrange some time for members’ sharing (Trauer and Ryan, 2005).
The tourists can even be allowed to have more free time instead of hurrying and giving
only a passing glance at the surroundings.
Finally, as to different types of people with VS, including the difference of the
properties of healthyand aggressive, complete involvement, lowdegree of identi?cation,
and balanced and self-suf?cient types, the study ?nd that, low degree of identi?cation
type people with VS reveal almost the least scores in terms of all kinds of traveling
preference, whereas complete involvement type show higher degree of preference. The
conclusion con?rmthe previous research ?ndings again. For people preferring all kinds
of SIT, the degree of their VSL is signi?cantly higher. Secondly, compare with the
balanced and self-suf?cient type, healthy and aggressive people with VS only have a
higher degree of history and art traveling preference, and did not show signi?cant
differences in terms of other aspects. This ?nding means that for companies focusing on
history and art SIT as target products, their major customers include not only the
complete involvement type, but also possibly healthy and aggressive type people with
VS. These two types of people with VS reveal a signi?cantly higher degree than the other
two clusters in terms of age and income. Thus, old-aged or high income people in the
history and art type SIT group shall be a group of critical potential customers.
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Corresponding author
Ming-Jian Shen can be contacted at: [email protected]; [email protected]
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
409
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doc_267116550.pdf
This research aims to treat voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL) as general lifestyle and
explore the correlation between VSL and selection preference of special interest tourism (SIT).
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Special interest tour preferences and voluntary simplicity lifestyle
Sheng Chieh-Wen Ming-J ian Shen Ming-Chia Chen
Article information:
To cite this document:
Sheng Chieh-Wen Ming-J ian Shen Ming-Chia Chen, (2008),"Special interest tour preferences and
voluntary simplicity lifestyle", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 2 Iss 4
pp. 389 - 409
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Ana M. González, Laurentino Bello, (2002),"The construct “lifestyle” in market segmentation: The
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dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090560210412700
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Special interest tour preferences
and voluntary simplicity lifestyle
Sheng Chieh-Wen
Chihlee Institute of Technology, Banciao City, Taiwan, Republic of China
Ming-Jian Shen
Department of Accounting Information,
Takming University of Science and Technology,
Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China, and
Ming-Chia Chen
Da-Yeh University, Taiwan, Republic of China
Abstract
Purpose – This research aims to treat voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL) as general lifestyle and
explore the correlation between VSL and selection preference of special interest tourism (SIT).
Design/methodology/approach – This research adopts a questionnaire survey. The content of the
questionnaire include questions on participants’ demographic variables, VSL, and selection preference
of SIT. After designing the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT, this research treats the tourists
in the Taiwan Guandu bird-watching area as the targets and distributes the questionnaires. This
research adopts systematic sampling for questionnaire distribution.
Findings – The following results are found: a positive correlation between selection preference of SIT
and VSL; females are mostly allocated as the recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT,
the educational level of diverse interest type people preferring SIT tend to be higher, and these people
have a more signi?cant VSL; people who are the low degree of identi?cation type with voluntary
simplicity reveal almost the least scores in terms of all kinds of traveling preference, whereas complete
involvement type individuals show a higher degree of preference.
Research limitations/implications – This questionnaire is not exclusive. In other words, the
respondents can provide extremely high, medium, or lowscores for the preference for any kind of trips.
Thus, the respondents’ real preference sequence cannot be distinguished. Future studies can modify
this questionnaire. The questionnaire of selection preference of SIT designed by this research mainly
followed the SIT itineraries promoted on traveling websites and upon certain processes. Thus, this
questionnaire content is based on the view of the supply end.
Originality/value – This research follows the suggestions of McKercher and Chan, and after
internet searching, the method imitates content analysis to establish a questionnaire with 18 questions
with respect to the selection preference of SIT. Through factor analysis, the researchers select four
kinds of selection preference of SIT, including traveling preference of recreation and entertainment,
natural ecology, physical exploration, and history and art. In addition, this research also uses
con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the convergent validity of the VSL questionnaire developed by
the authors (2005).
Keywords Tourism, Lifestyles, Taiwan
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Since the 1980s, when the living standard of consumers who are traveling is upgraded
and these people are having more and more tour experiences, many tourists have
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-6182.htm
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
389
Received May 2007
Revised September 2007
Accepted October 2007
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 2 No. 4, 2008
pp. 389-409
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180810909005
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started to demand higher tourist autonomy and trips that satisfy more diverse
purposes. Therefore, the tourism companies begin to adjust their product patterns to
meet the tourists’ different preferences for trip activities or destinations, and design a
series of itineraries with special interests. Such tourism is generally called special
interest tourism (SIT). The tourism companies expect to satisfy the individual needs of
different tourists through the design of this type of tourism (Gladwell, 1990; Ryel and
Grasse, 1991; Hall and Weiler, 1992; Douglas et al., 2001; Trauer, 2006; Tsaur and Shu,
2003).
With the rise of SIT, studies this behavior are also increasing. However, McKercher
and Chan (2005) ?nd that these many past researches studies measuring the tourists’
preferences by the activities the tourists are having, or are going to have, and neglect
that behavior does not equal preference. Trauer (2006) also indicates that, since tourism
has some experiential and emotional natures so Trauer argue that the tourism is not
measure only by behavioral indicators, such as participation in certain tours.
Therefore, this research will follow the suggestion of McKercher and Chan, and use the
questionnaire design of selection preference of SIT to directly inquire the tourists’
preferences by survey method and then proceed with preference allocation by factor
analysis.
Past studies relate to tourism have tended to analyze the tourists’ lifestyles.
The idea is that people’s feelings and attitudes toward tourism will re?ect on various
affairs in daily lives (Kuentzel, 2000). However, many studies analyze speci?c lifestyle.
In other words, the researchers explore the lifestyle relate to tourism products, such as
the analysis of Mayo (1975) and Gladwell (1990) on tourists in national parks or the
allocation and market segmentation study of Tsaur and Shu (2003) on the lifestyle
of tourists preferring artistic, natural, active trips, and so on. Although this kind of
research on speci?c lifestyles can lead to a higher degree of correlation between
lifestyle and speci?c products, the application is limited since these researches only
re?ect one part of consumers’ lifestyles.
The studies of Yuan et al. (2005), Trauer and Ryan (2005) and McKercher and Chan
(2005) ?nd that tourist diet preference, expectations of interpersonal relationships, and
attitudes toward the tourism policy of the company will be connected with tourism
selection. This ?nding means that more general lifestyle, or the activities, interests, or
opinions include more on individual living aspects, will also in?uence or re?ect
people’s will of enduring involvement in tourism (Trauer, 2006). Therefore, this
research will focus on more general lifestyles and will explore their relation with
selection preference of SIT from the view of market segmentation.
In general lifestyles, one kind emphasizes simplicity, pursuing internality, and
advocating environmental protection, and is called voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL).
Since the middle of the 1990s, VSL has been identi?ed with, and carry out by, more and
more people (Trend Institute, 1994; Johnston and Burton, 2002). The study of
Zavestoski (2002), Shaw and Newholm (2002) and Housel (2006) ?nd out that these
people with voluntary simplicity (VS) tend to have a higher degree of consuming
autonomy and expectations on self-actualization. Since the people preferring SIT have
a higher degree of tourism autonomy, in terms of psychological characteristics, those
preferring SIT seem to share certain common points with the ones of VS. Therefore,
this research chose to treat VSL as general lifestyle and explore the correlation between
VSL and selection preference of SIT.
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Literature review
Selection preference of SIT
Douglas et al. (2001, p. xvii) de?ne SIT as “a kind of customized recreational or tourism
experience with speci?c interests presented by an individual or group.” So-called
speci?c interests include the preference for the activities, places, scenery, and even the
emotional attachment to the companions (Hall and Weiler, 1992; Trauer and Ryan,
2005). Douglas et al. (2001) also indicate that the rise of SIT is the result of diversity of
recreational purposes. From a macro-level view (environmental and tourism supply
and demand) and micro-level view (personal recognition, behaviour, and emotional
system), Trauer (2006), respectively, explores the rise of SIT. As for the micro-level
view, Trauer (2006) ?nds out that the lifestyles of the tourists will affect the centrality
of the tourism topic, or the importance of the tourism topic for tourists. Secondly,
Trauer (2006) also argues that this centrality is one of the dimensions of enduring
involvement. So-called enduring involvement meant that the tourism value or meaning
will extend to various life aspects beyond tourism. This kind of enduring involvement
will change the tourists’ emotional systems for SIT and further result in their
preference for different SIT. Graham et al. (2007) Discussion focuses on marketing
implications for special interest wine tourists and on conceptual challenges relate to
high-end market research. Finally, Trauer also indicates that, although personal
preference can establish market demand, the environmental factors and supply and
demand of the tourism market shall still be considered in order to completely describe
the causes and background of the rise of the SIT market.
Since SIT rose because of the speci?c interests show by an individual or group,
SIT also re?ects the tourists’ awakening for recreational autonomic consciousness and
selection for recreational activities. Regardless of quality or quantities, they are more
cautious and active than before (Douglas et al., 2001; Marnburg and Mykletun, 2002;
Trauer, 2006; Tsaur and Shu, 2003). Therefore, when designing SIT, tourism
companies shall hold a consumer-oriented spirit and manage proper market
segmentation in order to understand the demands and preference of different travelers.
The purpose of so-called market segmentation is to segment the market into different
consumer subsets, according to segmentation variables, in order to allow each subset to
become the target market of a speci?c marketingcombination. Thus, market segmentation
is the proper tool to distinguish different consuming groups in order to look for market
opportunities (Kotler, 1980; van Raaij and Verhallen, 1994). Kotler and Armstrong (1991)
indicate that the market segmentation variables adopt by common studies can be
generallydividedintofour categories, includinggeographic, demographic, psychographic,
and behavioristic variables. Among others, demographic variables could be considered as
the earliest and most common segmentation variables. However, since consumers’
behavior is becoming complicated, only segmenting the consumers by demographic
variable will not provide in-depth understanding on their behavior. Thus, the scholars
mainly suggest that these researches shall combine psychographic segmentation
variables, such as personality characteristic, social status, vacationing preference, and
lifestyle, to allocate the consumers of products such as SIT so that they can have a more
abundant and deeper understanding toward the consumers (Mayo, 1975; Schewe and
Calantone, 1978; Ryel and Grasse, 1991; Andereck and Galdwell, 1994; Zins, 1998; Tsaur
andShu, 2003). As for demographic variables become a kindof descriptive variable, which
describe the population characteristic of each subset in the market (Wu, 2001).
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Generally speaking, personal values and lifestyle are two variables commonly used in
psychographic variables (Tsaur and Shu, 2003). Personal values mean a set of highly
subjective concept systems that re?ect on personal needs, attitudes, interests, preferences,
and motivation. These values further in?uence an individual’s consumption behavior
(Madrigal and Kahle, 1994). Lifestyle refer to the consumers’ life style (Kotler, 2000;
Blackwell et al., 2001; Wu, 2001), includingthe process of practicingthoughts. This ?nding
means the personal daily activities re?ect by the consumers and their interests and
opinions toward the affairs with the cultivation of social culture, after the transformation
of values and attitudes. Thus, personal values are a kind of subjective conceptual
combination, which is not easy to be observed. This combination tends to re?ect on
personal lifestyles. Therefore, people may indirectly access an individual’s value system
through the measurement of lifestyle (Hawkins et al., 2001). Thus, there are more and more
studies treating lifestyle as variable and managing market segmentation on products,
especially the ones with psychological grati?cation, such as tourism or artistic
appreciation, which are more suitable to be segmented by lifestyles (Engel et al., 1984).
Besides market segmentation, many studies access the various properties and
characteristics of the people of SITthrough different methods. For instance, the study by
Sorensen (1993) ?nds that the people of SITusually do not prefer a hotel brand; instead,
they are fond of a carefully select professional guide, smaller traveling groups,
a customized itinerary, or even remote or dif?cult destinations. Before exploring various
types of SIT, Douglas et al. (2001) point out by a generalized view that the people of SIT
are mostly greeners, namely the tourists with sustainable consciousness. In other words,
most of the people of SIT tend to identify with environmental protection.
Although Douglas et al. (2001) propose many examples to support their statements;
Marnburg and Mykletun (2002) hold a suspicious standpoint and consider that these
travelers of different special topics are mostly greeners? Does the tourism of different
special topics thus have to be involved in environmental appeals? Besides, Marnburg
and Mykletun (2002) also point out that Douglas et al. (2001) are from Australia where
the county is more proper to combine tourism with environmental issues. However, for
the tourism environment of other countries, the situations are not necessarily the same.
Thus, further evidence is still needed to con?rm if the people of SIT in other countries
are mostly greeners.
Voluntary simplicity lifestyle
As above, although the relation is still not clear as to whether the people of SIT are
equal to greeners, the rise and gradual importance of environmental consciousness is
actually the common consensus of most people in society. With the awakening of
environmental consciousness, a kind of lifestyle called VS is becoming the trend.
The earliest appearance of the concept of VS is around 1936, when Gregg ?rst
interprets the simple lifestyle proposed by Gandhi from an academic perspective.
By the 1970s, this kind of lifestyle is gradually valued and resulted in the discussions
of many scholars (Leonard-Barton, 1981). However, afterwards, the call of this lifestyle
is quiet until the middle of the 1990s, when VS is again noticed and became popular
(Zavestoski, 2002).
According to Gregg’s (1936) de?nition, VS included the meanings of internal attitude
and external experience. Internal aspect meant an individual’s internal sincerity
and loyalty and he is willing to re?ect them in his lifestyle in different aspects.
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Thus, based on this de?nition, the following scholars, respectively, propose their views
on VS. Much research indicates that VSL is basically a kind of re?ection of internal
abundant living attitude. This kind of internal attitude include self-re?ection, pursuit of
pure spirit and high degree of self-expectation and requirement on moral and spiritual
growth or self-actualization; on the other hand, VS also emphasize external simplicity
and self-discipline, and advocate environmental protection in order to facilitate the
harmony between human beings and ecology when reaching the balance of their own
physical and mental states (Elgin, 1981; Shama, 1985; Shi, 1985; Trend Institute, 1994;
Andrews, 1997; Mazza, 1997; Johnston and Burton, 2002).
Why are people willing to adopt this kind of lifestyle? Zavestoski (2002) indicates
that we may explain the ?rst rise of VS in the 1970s as a result of economic de?ation.
However, after the middle of the 1990s, VS becomes popular again. The major reason
shall be that people gradually felt disappointed and suspicious of materialism, since
during the process of consumption, they tend to feel that, although consumption led to
certain happiness, they also lost some authenticity; thus, the people gradually resent
and become lost in the mass consumption advocated by materialism and the
complicate and luxurious lifestyles of modern people. As to the expression of living
attitudes, people tend to support the appeals with an anti-consumption orientation,
such as VSL (Etzioni, 2004).
Although Zavestoski (2002) allocates VS as a kind of anti-consumption attitude,
some studies point out that the people with VS are not completely against
consumption; instead, they chose proper consumption. For example, these people
prefer computers over jewelries. They are more concerned about how the products are
made instead of the value of the brand of products or whether the brand meets their
own positions and identities (Craig-Lees and Hill, 2002). In addition, the research of
Shaw and Newholm (2002), as well as Housel (2006), indicates that people with VS may
maintain, but modify, their consumption. These simple livers still need some
technological ?xes such as the internet, cell phones, electric appliances, information
products, cars, and so on. However, they hope to purchase some more ef?cient or
energy-saving products.
Through the above description, these researches ?nd that people with VS are not
necessarily against consumerism; instead, they are a group of consumers with more
self-consciousness and they expect to carry out some of their ideals (such as
environmental appeals) through consumption. They even hope to reach self-awakening
by consumption. For example, these individuals harmonize their physical and mental
states by organic diet or follow their internal moral compulsion to purchase products of
the corporate with social responsibility (Shaw and Newholm, 2002).
Some of the past studies attempted to compare the life characteristics of people with
VS. For instance, Elgin and Mitchell (1997) allocates the people with VS into four
categories, including the most devote people with VS. These people tend to dress
simply, recycle, eat natural food, ride bicycles to work, love individual trips, value the
family, and often participate in meditation or growth groups, and so on. As to other
types of consumers, according to the VS degrees, Elgin and Mitchell (1997) allocates
them into: people with partial VS, people identifying with VS, and people against VS.
Most are those identifying with VS. These people basically identify with this lifestyle,
but cannot generally carry out VS in life behavior due to certain reasons. On the other
hand, Etzioni (2004) argues that, although, in terms of life characteristics, some people
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are downshifters who are willing to give up great incomes, reduce shopping desire, and
have frugal lives, these people are essentially different from those with VS. The most
signi?cant difference is that the people with VS tend to be more devoted than the
downshifters in terms of the internal meanings of moral issues and spiritual growth,
including concern about environmental or social issues and self-actualization. In other
words, compare with simple downshifters, those with VS value more the profound and
active internal meanings behind external simple behavior.
Iwata (1997, 1999) designs the measurement tool of VS. According to the view of
Shama and Wisenblit, he allocates VS into ?ve dimensions, including material
simplicity, human scale, self-determination, ecological responsibility, and personal
growth, and further established the questionnaire of VSL. Subsequently, Iwata
proceeds with factor analysis, respectively, on college students and women, and
divided VSL into four factors: VSL, cautious attitudes in shopping, acceptance of
self-suf?ciency, and rejection of highly develop functions of products.
Although Iwata (1997, 1999) designs the measurement tool of VSL, he also indicates
that the ?ve dimensions of VS proposed by Shama and Wisenblit cannot properly
measure complete VSL. Therefore, in the study, Iwata adopts a narrower de?nition of
VS. In other words, he only focuses on the low-consumption and material-suf?ciency
external behavior of VS instead of the measurement of their internal meanings,
including the environmental consciousness or moral concerns. Secondly, Iwata’s
research targets, regardless of whether college students or women, do not include
general consumers, such as male workers. The accumulated explanatory variance of
Iwata’s factor analysis results is not high (29 and 32 percent). This ?nding means that
these four factors cannot completely explain VSL.
Since the study of Iwata (1997, 1999) is still insuf?cient, Sheng et al. (2005) follow the
principle of AIO and combine many scholars’ de?nitions of VS to design another
questionnaire of VSL. Since the design process of the said questionnaire is cautious and
the scale is broader, the current research adopts this questionnaire to measure VSL and
use con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the validity. With regard to the
measurement of selection preference of SIT, since past studies are lacking, this
research designs the questionnaire and then proceeds with explorative factor analysis.
Finally, the research explores the correlation between these two concepts: Selection
Preference of SIT and VSL.
Method
Hypothesis establishment
VSL relates to certain consuming preferences or behaviors. For example, the research
of Sheng et al. (2005) and Brown and Kasser (2005) show that people with VS tend to
prefer green consumption or have ecologically responsible behavior. The study of
Elgin and Mitchell (1997) ?nd that people with VS tend to prefer individual trips and
hope to have more traveling autonomy.
Since people with VS tend to long for more traveling autonomy, SIT is a kind of
customized itinerary arrangement for complying with the autonomic consciousness of
the tourists (Douglas et al., 2001; Tsaur and Shu, 2003). In addition, Douglas et al. (2001)
argue that most people with SIT have a higher degree of environmental consciousness,
which is actually one of the critical dimensions of VSL (Etzioni, 2004; Brown and
Kasser, 2005; Sheng et al., 2005). Therefore, people with SIT and those with VS seem to
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share certain common points in terms of environmental consciousness and traveling
autonomy. In addition, Trauer (2006) points out that the tourists’ preference for SIT
will be in?uenced by their lifestyles. Thus, this research proposes that:
H1. There is signi?cantly positive correlation between the selection preference of
SIT and VSL.
On the other hand, this research also plan to proceed with market segmentation analysis
to ?nd out different types of people preferring SIT and VS, and compare the differences
in terms of demographic and psychographic variables in order to propose the relate
marketing suggestion. Thus, this research treats the selection preference of SITand VSL
as the variables and use managed cluster analysis on the participants. Subsequently, the
researchers use four hypotheses to con?rmthe differences in terms of demographic and
psychographic variables of different types of people preferring SIT or VS:
H2. Different clusters of people preferring SIT have signi?cantly different VSLs.
H3. Different clusters of people following VSL have signi?cantly different
selection preferences for SIT.
H4. Different clusters of people preferring SIT have signi?cantly different
demographic variables.
H5. Different clusters of people following VSL have signi?cantly different
demographic variables.
Questionnaire design and research targets
This research adopts a questionnaire survey. The content of the questionnaire include
questions on participants’ demographic variables, VSL, and selection preference of
SIT. Regarding VSL, the research uses a ?ve-point scale questionnaire designed by
Sheng et al. (2005). The questionnaire mainly follow the questions developed by
Leonard-Barton (1981) and Iwata (1997, 1999), with more literature de?nitions and
based on the AIO principle. At the beginning, there are too many questions in the
questionnaire. However, after the feedback of the pretest, the test on the consumers of
The Body Shop, and item and factor analysis, there are 7 factors with 26 questions:
value promotion, serious attitude, health consciousness, impersonal share, nature
approaching, self-suf?ciency, and simplicity. Since the accumulated explanatory
variance of each factor in the questionnaire is 64 percent, which is more than the VS
questionnaire developed by Iwata (1997, 1999). The said questionnaire include internal
attitude and external experience, and this questionnaire can be more likely to re?ect
Gregg’s (1936) basic de?nition of VS, compared with Iwata’s measurement, which
merely focus on external simplicity instead of internal abundance.
As for the selection preference of SIT, empirical studies relating to this aspect are rare.
Even though there are some connect studies, these studies mostly measure the tourists’
preferences by the activities they participate in, such as the research of Plummer et al.
(2005) and Tsaur and Shu (2003) and so on. However, McKercher and Chan (2005) ?nd in
their study that the tourists’ motivations to join in SIT are very diverse, and the
participants are not necessarily fond of the itinerary. Sometimes, they may be forced to
participate in the activities hold by the companies. Thus, McKercher and Chan (2005)
suggest that, in order to access to the tourists’ preferences, it is better to ask the
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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tourists directly. Therefore, this research designs the questionnaire through the following
process and asks direct questions on the participants’ selection preferences of SIT:
.
Use SIT as keywords to search for the web pages through MSN and Google
search engines.
.
Following content analysis and information ?nd in these web pages,
respectively, selected the ?rst ten with the complete term of SIT and con?rms
that the web pages are related to tourism introduction.
.
Among the 20 web pages select, reorganize and list various itineraries of SIT,
such as team township trip or parent-children trip.
.
Invite three professionals with a certain degree of understanding of, or frequently
participation in, SIT. The professionals include one ten-year member of a
timeshare resort, one college professor, and one writer. Researchers ask them to
follow the descriptive de?nition of SIT and combine the similar types of SIT list
above.
.
According to different SIT combinations, the researchers design a selection
preference questionnaire with a ?ve-point scale. For example, If I have available
budget and time, I will be willing to participate in the tourism relate to history
such as museum trip, nostalgia trip or historic spot and temple trip, and so on.
.
Invite six university students to give semantic feedback with regard to the initial
questionnaire to ensure that the questions in the questionnaire are easy to
understand in order to increase their face validity.
After designing the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT, this research treats the
tourists in the Taiwan Guandu bird-watching area as the targets and distributes the
questionnaires. These targets are chosen because this bird-watching trip contains
ecological and environmental consciousness. Environmental consciousness is very
likely to be the issue concerned by the people of SIT and VS (Douglas et al., 2001;
Etzioni, 2004; Brown and Kasser, 2005; Sheng et al., 2005). Thus, these targets may be
able to accept and understand the questionnaire, and there will be higher face validity.
In addition, since the said area has a clear scope and regular entrance and exit, it is
bene?cial for questionnaire distribution and return.
This research adopts systematic sampling for questionnaire distribution. In four
weekends, two or three people form a group and distribute one questionnaire at the
interval of every 15 tourists from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. (except for lunch and break
time). Small gifts are given to encourage participation. Since this research will proceed
with factor analysis, and the study of Yeh and Lawrence (1996) point out that if the
numbers of samples in factor analysis can be over 200, the reliability of the results will
considerably increase, 300 valid return questionnaires are treated as the target. The
population statistics are as follows. About 37.0 percent are married and 52.7 percent
are female. A total of 74.3 percent are college graduates, with 25.7 percent having less
than a college degree. About 51.0 percent of people in the sample are religious. About
56 percent of respondents are in the 21-30 age category, with 22 percent in the 31-40 age
category, 11.0 percent in the 41 and older age category, and 11.0 percent less than 20.
About 8.3 percent have personal monthly income over 60,000 NT dollars, 58.0 percent
receive less than 30,000 NT dollars, and 33.7 percent are in the 30,000-60,000 personal
monthly income group.
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Results
Factor analysis and reliability and validity analytical results
First of all, this research proceeds with factor analysis on selection preference of SIT.
Through Principle Component Analysis, and according to the criterion of
Eigenvalue . 1, the researchers obtain four factors with 18 questions. The
accumulated explanatory variance is 56.2 percent (Table I). Subsequently,
this research employ varimax-rotation to acquire the factor loading of each question,
and select the ones over 0.45 as the questions of the factor (Hair et al., 1998). The
researchers then treat two questions with the highest factor loading as the base of the
factor name and, respectively, named Factors 1-4 as: recreation and entertainment
traveling preference, natural ecology traveling preference, physical exploration
traveling preference, and history and art traveling preference (when mentioning these
factors in the following sections, the term traveling preference may be omitted).
After factor analysis, this research then manages reliability analysis. The
researchers ?rst employ Cronbach a value to examine the internal consistency of each
factor of VSL. The a value of adaptive and simplicity is 0.71, while it is 0.71 for serious
attitude, 0.80 for nature approaching, 0.76 for health consciousness, 0.67 for impersonal
share, 0.87 for value promotion, and 0.78 for self-suf?ciency. This research also
Factors Eigenvalue
Content of questions: if I have
available budget and time, I will be
willing to participate in. . . Factor loading
Recreation and entertainment
traveling preference
5.48 Food culture trip, such as delicacy
trip, wine township, tea township,
or coffee trips
0.73
Recreational trip, such as island
vacation, amusement park, or
parent-children trips
0.71
Natural ecology traveling
preference
1.96 Nature-related trip, such as ocean,
?eld, forest, river, gorge, or
national park trips
0.83
Animal watching-related trip, such
as butter?y watching, whale
watching, ?re?y, bird-watching, or
frog-watching trips
0.80
Physical exploration traveling
preference
1.49 Trips of physical sports, such as
skiing, canoeing, mountain
climbing and hiking, sur?ng, or
bike trips
0.84
Trips of adventure around the
world, such as world searching or
danger zone trips
0.73
History and art traveling
preference
1.20 History-related trip, such as
museum, nostalgia or historical
spots, and temple trips
0.74
Art-related trip, such as music, ?ne
art, or architecture trips
0.73
Note: The accumulated explanatory variance of the four factors is 56.2 percent
Table I.
Factor analytical result of
selection preference of
SIT
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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con?rms the internal consistency of each factor of selection preference of SIT. The
results reveal that the Cronbach a value of recreation and entertainment is 0.75, natural
ecology is 0.79, physical exploration is 0.68, and history and art is 0.70. Thus, this
research ?nds that most of the Cronbach a values are close to or more than 0.70. Thus,
the questionnaire is reliable to a certain degree (Cuieford, 1965; Nunnally, 1978).
In addition to reliability analysis, this research also proceeds with con?rmatory
factor analysis on each factor of VSL to examine the convergent validity of each factor.
After the estimation through Maximum likelihood, the researchers obtained the x
2
value of 945.4 ( p-value , 0.0001) and degrees of freedom x
2
is 3. According to the
view of Joreskog and Sorbom (1986) and Chow (2002), the result shows that the
propriety of the model is ?ne. In other words, the convergent validity of each factor is
acceptable. As for the selection preference of SIT, after factor analysis, this research
does not further collect data for con?rmatory factor analysis. However, after observing
the correlation matrix among the factors, this statistics ?nd that the related factors are
not high (between 0.16 and 0. 31). This ?nding means that there is certain
discriminative validity among the factors.
Cluster analytical result
With regard to cluster analysis on the participants, this research divides these clusters
into two sections. First, according to the seven factors of VSL, the researchers allocate
the participants to different clusters of people with VS. In addition, according to the
four factors of selection preference of SIT, the participants are allocated to different
clusters of people preferring SIT. With regard to the decision of the number of clusters,
the researchers mainly follow the suggestion of Chow (2002) and employ cubic
clustering criterion (CCC) to ?nd the most proper number of clusters. Finally, the VS
group is divided into four groups (CCC ¼ 7.064) and different people of SIT are
allocated into three groups (CCC ¼ 8).
Subsequently, with regard to different clusters of people with VS, this research
proceeds with ANOVA on each cluster and related factors, and named the clusters
according to the results. Table II refers to the ANOVA results of the cluster of people
with VS and each factor of VS. According to analysis ?nd that the averages of the
different factors in Cluster 2 are higher and those of Cluster 3 are signi?cantly lower.
Thus, Cluster 2 is named complete involvement (114 people) and Cluster 3 is named
low degree of identi?cation (43 people). As for Cluster 1, since the averages of different
factors are not low, particularly in terms of adaptive and simplicity, health
consciousness and value promotion which are close to those of complete involvement
type, this cluster is called healthy and aggressive type (34 people). Finally, the scores of
the factors in Cluster 4 are between 3 and 4. This ?nding means that the participants in
this cluster have a medium degree of identi?cation with each VS factor. However, from
Table II, this statistics result that, although people with VS in Cluster 4 reveal lower
scores than the complete involvement type in terms of self-suf?ciency, the scores are
still higher than those of healthy and aggressive type. Thus, this cluster is named
balance and self-suf?ciency (109 people).
This research also conduct ANOVA on the relate factors and clusters of people
preferring SIT and named the clusters according to the results. Table III refers to the
analytical results. The averages of different factors in Cluster 3 are higher. This
information shows that participants in Cluster 3 have diverse preferences for SIT from
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Table II.
ANOVA results on
clusters of people with VS
and the related factors
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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recreation and entertainment to physical exploration. Thus, the researchers named this
group diverse interest (145 people). The scores of the factors in Cluster 2 are not high
and only the score on recreation and entertainment is close to that of the diverse
interest type. Thus, these participants are called recreation and entertainment type (34
people). Finally, with regard to Cluster 1, according to the averages of the factors, these
participants did not particularly prefer any kinds of SIT, and are named general and
balanced traveling preference people (121 people).
Validation result of hypotheses
Table IV provides the results of the correlation analysis on H1. Since the factors of VSL
are basically part of the lifestyle, this research adds its total scores. Since selection
preference of SIT is the re?ection on different types of SIT, logically, this part is not
suitable for being added scores. Thus, the results in Table IV show that there is
signi?cant and positive correlation between different types of selection preference of
SIT and VSL. Thus, H1 is supported. However, if this research further analyze the
factors of VSL, the analysis ?nd in Table IV that traveling preference in recreation and
entertainment, and serious attitude, health consciousness, impersonal share, and
self-suf?ciency in VS are not signi?cantly correlated. In other words, travelers
preferring recreation and entertainment are not special in terms of serious attitude,
health consciousness, impersonal share, and self-suf?ciency within lifestyle aspects.
In addition, this research also recognizes that health consciousness has a signi?cantly
positive correlation only with natural ecology traveling preference. This means that
this aspect is not closely connects with people’s selection preference of SIT.
Tables V and VI show the analytical results of H2 and H4, which mainly explore
the characteristics after clustering the people preferring different SIT’s. H2 is accepted
since the people preferring diverse interest type SIT has signi?cantly higher degrees of
VSL. In addition, H4 is partially supported since there are only some demographic
variables reveal to have signi?cant differences on the clusters preferring different SIT:
the educational level of diverse interest and general and balanced types are higher, and
there are more females among the recreation and entertainment type SIT individuals.
H3 is focused on segmenting different people with VS and exploring the differences of
their selection preference of SIT. The result is partially established, as shown in Table VII.
Those witha lowdegree of identi?cationof VShave the least preferences ondifferent trips.
People with complete involvement have higher degrees of SIT preference. In addition,
the people of healthy and aggressive type VS reveal higher degrees of history and art
traveling preferences compare with the balanced and self-suf?cient type. The other aspect
has no signi?cant difference from the balanced and self-suf?cient type.
Recreation and
entertainment
Natural
ecology
Physical
exploration
History
and art
Cluster 1: general and balanced 3.70 3.54 3.59 3.40
Cluster 2: recreation and entertainment 4.46 3.67 2.81 3.00
Cluster 3: diverse interests 4.54 4.44 4.16 4.23
Comparison among clusters 2 ¼ 3 . 1 3 . 1 ¼ 2 3 . 1 . 2 3 . 1 . 2
Note: The comparison among the clusters is the reorganization of pair comparison, which treated 0.05
as signi?cant standard
Table III.
ANOVA results
on the clusters of people
preferring SIT
and the related factors
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Table IV.
Correlation analysis on
various selection
preferences of SIT and
VSL
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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Table V.
ANOVA analysis on
different clusters of
people preferring SIT
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H5 is based on the demographic differences of different types of people with VS. The
result is partially established, as shown Tables VI and VII. The complete involvement
type and healthy and aggressive type people with VS reveal signi?cantly higher scores
on age and income than the other two clusters. With regard to religion (Table VI), the
complete involvement type, balanced and self-suf?cient type, healthy and aggressive
type, and low degree of identi?cation type people with VS reveal sequential religion
ration from high to low.
Conclusion and suggestion
Research conclusions
The past studies relating to SIT mostly consider the tourists’ preferences according to
the trips they participated in. McKercher and Chan (2005) ?nd out that recognizing their
preferences based only on trips might lead to signi?cant errors. Thus, McKercher and
Chan (2005) claim that, in order to access to the tourists’ traveling preferences, a way is
better to directly explore the topic using a preference questionnaire. Thus, this research
follows the suggestions of McKercher and Chan, and after internet searching, the
method imitates content analysis to establish a questionnaire with 18 questions with
respect to the selection preference of SIT. Through factor analysis, the researchers select
four kinds of selection preference of SIT, including traveling preference of recreation and
entertainment, natural ecology, physical exploration, and history and art.
In addition, this research also uses con?rmatory factor analysis to con?rm the
convergent validity of the VSL questionnaire developed by Sheng et al. (2005). After
con?rming the measurement tool for VSL and developing the questionnaire of selection
preference for SIT, the researchers validated the hypotheses. The results and
descriptions are reorganized as follows.
H1 is established when any type of selection preference of SIT is more obvious, the
orientation of its VSL will be more signi?cant. H2 is established too. Regarding the
different types of people preferring SIT, Diverse interest type people preferring SIThave a
signi?cantly higher degree of VSL. The educational level of diverse interest and general
and balanced type people preferring SIT is higher. There are more females among the
recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT. H3-H5 are partially established.
Actual vs expected
numbers of
male/female
Actual vs expected
numbers of
married/unmarried
Actual vs expected
numbers with/without
religion
Sex
* *
Marital state Religion
General and balanced 69/52 vs 57/64 44/77 vs 45/76 57/64 vs 62/59
Recreation and entertainment 5/29 vs 16/18 16/18 vs 13/21 21/13 vs 17/17
Diverse interests 68/77 vs 69/76 52/93 vs 54/91 75/70 vs 74/71
Comparison of cluster ratio 1 . 3 . 2 2 . 1 . 3 2 . 3 . 1
Sex Marital state Religion
*
Healthy and aggressive 14/20 vs 16/18 18/16 vs 13/21 17/17 vs 17/17
Complete involvement 63/51 vs 54/60 45/69 vs 43/71 63/51 vs 58/56
Low degree of identi?cation 17/26 vs 20/23 12/31 vs 16/27 17/26 vs 22/21
Balanced and self-suf?cient 48/61 vs 52/57 37/72 vs 41/68 56/53 vs 56/53
Comparison among clusters 2 . 4 . 1 . 3 1 . 2 . 4 . 3 2 . 4 . 1 . 3
Notes:
*
p-value ,0.05;
* *
p-value , 0.001
Table VI.
x
2
analysis on different
clusters of people
preferring SIT/VSL
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
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Table VII.
ANOVA analysis on
different clusters of
people with VSL
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As for the different types of people with VS, Lowdegree of identi?cation type people with
VS revealed almost the least traveling preference in terms of natural ecology, physical
exploration, and history and art. Those in the complete involvement type have a higher
degree of preference. Healthyandaggressive type people withVSreveal a higher degree in
terms of history and art traveling preference, compared with the balanced and
self-suf?cient type. The other aspect has no signi?cant difference from the balanced and
self-suf?cient type. The complete involvement type and healthy and aggressive type
people with VS reveal a signi?cantly higher degree than the other two clusters in terms of
age and income. Complete involvement, balanced and self-suf?cient, healthy and
aggressive, and low degree of identi?cation type people with VS reveal a sequential
religious population ratio from high to low.
Discussions and suggestions
Although certain logic and systematic characteristics occur during the process when this
research designs the questionnaire of selection preference of SIT and reliability and
validity are con?rmed, the questionnaire still reveals insuf?cient aspects. For example,
this questionnaire is not exclusive. In other words, the respondents can provide extremely
high, medium, or lowscores for the preference for any kindof trips. Thus, the respondents’
real preference sequence cannot be distinguished. For example, in Table III, general and
balanced and diverse interest types revealed stable, high or medium levels of preference
for different types of SIT, and the researchers cannot distinguish which is their favorite.
Future studies can modify this questionnaire. For example, they can ask the respondents
to arrange the preference of each questionor require the respondents to distribute funds to
the trips they are willingto participate inwith ?xed and limited traveling funds. However,
this may reduce the participants’ willingness to return the questionnaire, increasing the
dif?culty in analyzing and further in?uencing the questionnaire and research validity.
The questionnaire of selection preference of SIT designed by this research mainly
followed the SITitineraries promoted on traveling websites and upon certain processes.
Thus, this questionnaire content is based on the view of the supply end. However,
according to the de?nition of Douglas et al. (2001) of SIT, SIT shall be a kind of
customized traveling experience. If researchers allow the customers to propose their
needs and further access their selection preferences of SIT, these researches result are
more likely to meet the signi?cance of customization. Thus, future studies may consider
using methods such as focus forum to have an in-depth understanding of customers’
needs, and combine the questionnaire content of this research to develop the
questionnaire to include both the supply and demand ends. This way will be more likely
to comply with Trauer’s (2006) observation and suggestion since he indicates that the
rise of SIT shall consider the supply and demand of the market at the same time.
Since the hypothesis validation used in this research is mostly related to market
segmentation, the aspect is mainly explored through marketing signi?cance. First of
all, through the correlation analysis, H1 is established. There is positive correlation
between selection preference of SIT and VSL. Therefore, when an individual has a
greater preference for any type of SIT, his daily activities, interest in the affairs, and
opinion expression will be more likely to reveal VSL, such as preferring simple and
practical things or being willing to deliver the importance of self-re?ection. Therefore,
the companies offering SIT can consider treating VSL as the call to design proper
marketing activities to attract the potential customers drawn to SIT.
Special interest
tour preferences
and VSL
405
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As for H2-H5, the validation results are discussed in two parts. The ?rst part is related
to different types of people preferring SIT, including general and balanced, recreation and
entertainment, and diverse interest type people preferring SIT, and the difference of their
properties. According to the research ?nd out that females are mostly allocated as
the recreation and entertainment type people preferring SIT. Thus, companies focusing
on the products of recreation and entertainment type SIT are suggested to involve more
resources in the development of female customers. In addition, the educational level of
diverse interest type people preferring SIT (the group preferring various types of SIT)
tend to be higher and these people have a more signi?cant VSL. This ?nding means that
if tourism companies operate more than one kind of SIT, customers with the most
potential or consuming will should be these tourists with diverse interests. Since the
educational level of these tourists tend to be higher, companies shall focus on the higher
education market, such as posting their advertisements in magazines or newspaper
instead of TV commercials since the report indicates that people with higher educational
background preferred print media (Katz et al., 1973). Since special interest tourists tend to
have a VSL, this journey is suggested to add more activities or itineraries that increase the
focus on internal signi?cance, simplicity, and an environmental spirit. For example, the
tour guide can describe more meaningful historical stories relate to the trips (Sorensen,
1993), arrange some delicious and healthy food, provide high-quality, simple and
practical small gifts, or arrange some time for members’ sharing (Trauer and Ryan, 2005).
The tourists can even be allowed to have more free time instead of hurrying and giving
only a passing glance at the surroundings.
Finally, as to different types of people with VS, including the difference of the
properties of healthyand aggressive, complete involvement, lowdegree of identi?cation,
and balanced and self-suf?cient types, the study ?nd that, low degree of identi?cation
type people with VS reveal almost the least scores in terms of all kinds of traveling
preference, whereas complete involvement type show higher degree of preference. The
conclusion con?rmthe previous research ?ndings again. For people preferring all kinds
of SIT, the degree of their VSL is signi?cantly higher. Secondly, compare with the
balanced and self-suf?cient type, healthy and aggressive people with VS only have a
higher degree of history and art traveling preference, and did not show signi?cant
differences in terms of other aspects. This ?nding means that for companies focusing on
history and art SIT as target products, their major customers include not only the
complete involvement type, but also possibly healthy and aggressive type people with
VS. These two types of people with VS reveal a signi?cantly higher degree than the other
two clusters in terms of age and income. Thus, old-aged or high income people in the
history and art type SIT group shall be a group of critical potential customers.
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Corresponding author
Ming-Jian Shen can be contacted at: [email protected]; [email protected]
Special interest
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and VSL
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