The hybrid tourist

What is it about?

Inspired by the recent emergence of the hybrid consumer in the marketing literature, the present article defines hybrid tourists and assesses empirical evidence of their existence. Results indicate that hybrid tourists – tourists whose segment membership for the next trip cannot be predicted from their segment membership of their last trip – are the norm, rather than the exception. Only one quarter of tourists remain in the same motivation segment across more than one trip. Results are similar for expenditure segments. Tourist hybridity exists both with respect to travel motivations and expenditure. Personal characteristics predict hybridity. New approaches of market segmentation are needed to cater for the hybrid tourist.

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Why is it important?

Tourists do not fit neatly into a market segment all the time. Rather, depending on the purpose and nature of their trip, they fall into different segments on different travel occasions. New - smarter - segmentation might be required.