Segmenting outbound tourists based on their activities: toward experiential consumption spheres in tourism services?

Purpose – Classical socio‐demographic segmentation approaches of tourists mostly fail to cluster customer groups appropriately. More recent segmentation approaches have employed a more customer‐centric perspective, attempting to capture consumer behavioral patterns. Within such segmentation, one very promising approach examines the activities pursued by tourists. This research aims to identify activity patterns of outbound travelers for segmentation and ultimately to recognize experiential consumption spheres created by tourists at a destination. Design/methodology/approach – This paper applies a posteriori, data‐driven, activity‐based segmentation to outbound travelers. Findings – The present study identifies six activity‐based clusters: average short‐haul holiday experiences (Cluster 1); short repeat healthy winter experiences (Cluster 2); new beach experiences (Cluster 3); short social encounter experiences (Cluster 4); new place experiences (Cluster 5); and seniors' new place experiences (Cluster 6). Originality/value – This research is unlike many other studies that apply segmentation to inbound travelers. The authors' approach analyzes outbound travelers and is based on the notion that activities are the basis of the experiential consumption of consumers and the idea that customers co‐create experiences in so‐called experiential consumption spheres during activity‐based encounters with service providers at a destination.