Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway

The overall goal of this study is to explore the relative importance different groups of tourists give to the vacation experience phases (pretrip, en-route, and on-site experiences). By clustering the tourist by their motivation and subsequently testing the relative importance given to the various t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Prebensen, N., Woo, E., Chen, J., Uysal, Muzaffer
Format: Journal Article
Published: Croatian National Tourist Board 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53246
_version_ 1848759099681931264
author Prebensen, N.
Woo, E.
Chen, J.
Uysal, Muzaffer
author_facet Prebensen, N.
Woo, E.
Chen, J.
Uysal, Muzaffer
author_sort Prebensen, N.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The overall goal of this study is to explore the relative importance different groups of tourists give to the vacation experience phases (pretrip, en-route, and on-site experiences). By clustering the tourist by their motivation and subsequently testing the relative importance given to the various trip phases, the idea is to get new knowledge in terms of quality perceptions of the different phases of a journey, not only on-site experiences for different tourist segments. The tourist journey is divided into three phases: pretrip experience, en-route trip experience, and destination on-site experiences. Factor analysis of motivation items resulted in four groupings of motivation factors: "Personal enrichment," "Escape," "Socialization," and "Family togetherness." Cluster analysis based on factor scores of the motivation items identified two segments. Segment I included 161 respondents (28% of the sampled visitors); Segment II contained 418 (72% of the sampled visitors). The two motivation based segments were then examined and profiled with quality elements of the three trip phases, visitor's demographic, and behavior variables. The results show that tourists value the various phases of the journey differently based on their motivation to travel. The study results are discussed in terms practical implication for the tourism industry to enhance the total experience quality of a journey by including all the phases of a vacation trip.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:54:30Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-53246
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:54:30Z
publishDate 2012
publisher Croatian National Tourist Board
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-532462018-03-29T09:09:36Z Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway Prebensen, N. Woo, E. Chen, J. Uysal, Muzaffer The overall goal of this study is to explore the relative importance different groups of tourists give to the vacation experience phases (pretrip, en-route, and on-site experiences). By clustering the tourist by their motivation and subsequently testing the relative importance given to the various trip phases, the idea is to get new knowledge in terms of quality perceptions of the different phases of a journey, not only on-site experiences for different tourist segments. The tourist journey is divided into three phases: pretrip experience, en-route trip experience, and destination on-site experiences. Factor analysis of motivation items resulted in four groupings of motivation factors: "Personal enrichment," "Escape," "Socialization," and "Family togetherness." Cluster analysis based on factor scores of the motivation items identified two segments. Segment I included 161 respondents (28% of the sampled visitors); Segment II contained 418 (72% of the sampled visitors). The two motivation based segments were then examined and profiled with quality elements of the three trip phases, visitor's demographic, and behavior variables. The results show that tourists value the various phases of the journey differently based on their motivation to travel. The study results are discussed in terms practical implication for the tourism industry to enhance the total experience quality of a journey by including all the phases of a vacation trip. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53246 10.3727/108354212X13485873913921 Croatian National Tourist Board restricted
spellingShingle Prebensen, N.
Woo, E.
Chen, J.
Uysal, Muzaffer
Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title_full Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title_fullStr Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title_full_unstemmed Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title_short Experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: A case of Northern Norway
title_sort experience quality in the different phases of a tourist vacation: a case of northern norway
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53246