Consumer behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Consumer behaviour - Essay Example Moreover, these traits mostly represent the processes used when consumers are considering physical products for purchase. Most tourists make travel decisions based on the influence of their friends or family members, or due to the emotional appeal of tourist destinations. It is important to understand that tourists usually undertake varied decision making processes when they choose to go on holiday. A good example of this is the scenario where people who were not meaning to go on a visit any where suddenly make a last minute decision to accompany friends or family members to exotic lands. According to (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegarrd, and Hogg 2009) in modern times, there are tourist behaviours such ‘‘last-minute’’ decisions to travel show that traditional decision-making methods are becoming irrelevant. There are even more factors that travellers decide to use in determining the choices of tourist destinations that they decide on. For instance, it would appear that for some travellers, the choice of where or when to travel is an ongoing process which may be changed even after a decision has been made on the preferred destination. In addition, more and more travellers are allowing their decisions to be influenced by nostalgia, travel party, and date. Travellers today are also more ready to expose themselves to surprises as they feel that this is the only way in which they will authentically be able to experience any destination. According to Alain Decrop, there are travelers who choose travel destinations even without conducting any research on the culture of the places they are going to visit in order to experience the chosen destinations in a more unbiased manner (Decrop 2005). In such cases, what is unexpected adds to the excitement of the first time experiences of the tourists. Planning for a holiday will remove the excitement of first landing in a foreign land and thus destroy the whole purpose of travelling in the first place. 2. Com pare the information search process, as it is described in the case, with the search process that consumers might follow for one other product category (e.g. a household appliance or a perfume). When making purchase decisions, consumers may take into consideration a lot of information; particularly when deciding on a product brand such as a car or a sofa set. This differs from the decision making processes used by tourists when picking vacation destinations. Many consumers do not pick household appliances on a whim; or decide to order for these products from a store while leaving the decision on colour or texture to the seller so as to experience the element of surprise. For the most part, household goods and other such products are chosen after consumers embark on sequential decision processes in which various options are considered in a systematic method until the customer arrives at his or her last remaining choice. Following this evaluation process, the customers will choose the product they wish to purchase. Moreover, there are other ways in which purchasing decisions made during the procurement of products are somewhat similar to those used when travellers are picking on vacation spots. This is because a consumer can change his or her mind and pick on a competitor’s merchandise instead; or cancel the acquisition altogether. This could be spurred by impolite staff in the place of transaction, a long queue, or even a complicated