International urban travelers: Patterns, perceptions, preferences in global tourism

As the globalization process accelerates and the volume of tourism markets increases, it has become ever more important to understand international urban travelers with regard to their patterns, perceptions, and preferences. The purpose of this study was to analyze the patterns, perceptions, and preferences of international travelers, based on the inbound destination life-cycle model as the conceptual framework for analyzing international urban travelers with a sample of travelers from Europe, North America, and Japan to Seoul, Korea. With each region's average market share and annual growth rate for the last ten years, from 1990 to 1999, it was assumed that the three regions were at different stages of the inbound life cycle. For this empirical study, a total of 420 valid samples were collected in the international airport in Seoul in the summer of 2000. The sample was composed of 140 travelers from each region, including pleasure and business travelers. Related to a region's geographical/cultural distance and the inbound life-cycle model, three research hypotheses were examined.; The study provided implications at tourism industry or government levels as well as at company levels. According to the research findings, international travelers perceived more intangible, psychological attributes than tangible, functional attributes of urban tourism if their origins were more distant from the destination and vice versa. Images perceived favorably were directly related to preferences of urban tourism attributes. As another underlying regional characteristic, European visitors were relatively more "security-centered" travelers, compared with North American visitors, who were regarded as more "activity-centered" travelers. In demographic profiles, ages and income levels of the international travelers showed more relationships with their trip patterns than genders of the travelers. Business travelers were repeat visitors more often than pleasure travelers; thus, they were regarded as having more tangible perceptions of the city and greater influences on the sources for the image-formation process.; Finally, the study attempted to enhance the understanding of international urban travelers by focusing on European, North American, and Japanese travelers to Seoul, Korea and to show the theoretical as well as practical implications based on the inbound destination life-cycle model as an analytical strategic planning tool for urban tourism.