What are the implications of distance decay for the tourism industry? Specifically, what can DMO (Destination Marketing Organization) promote its destination by using the concept of distance decay? You may talk about DMO in general or select one destination when answering this question. 

Student A

Butler and Plog adopt different biological models when developing their life cycles. Butler supports an evolutionary model whereas Plog supports a diffusion model. Both have gained acceptance in the literature. Which one do you support and why?

After reading and knowing the chapter, I will support both Butler’s evolutionary model and Plog’s model. Because both models have their own theories, personally, I think one is more focused on the destination and the other is more focused on the tourists. For Butler’s model, each step of the model will keep changing when the time passes. Starting with the exploration, a small number of tourists will come and visit. Then the larger groups will come during the involvement and development steps. Finally, the consolidation and stagnation will give the final model of the destination, which shows the economy, marketing, and attraction to tourists. In Butler’s model, the destination can know which step and situation they are in right now and what is the next model step they should get. After the stagnation, there are five final results the destination will face, they can choose to find out a new thing to attract the tourists or just decline. Compared to Butler’s model, Plog’s model focused more on the tourists. Plog divides visitors into groups of different levels. This model can understand customers more quickly and focus on taking care of “better” groups in a targeted manner, so as to achieve the purpose of making tourists come back again. I think both models have merit, and both are useful when used and understood properly.

What are the implications of distance decay for the tourism industry? Specifically, what can DMO (Destination Marketing Organization) promote its destination by using the concept of distance decay? You may talk about DMO in general or select one destination when answering this question. 

According to the data in the chapter, more than half of the global travel is to immediate land neighbors and very little is to distant destinations. Figure 5.4 in the chapter shows the impact of the distance people travel to their destination. So for example, if I ask my friends whether they want to travel to Tokyo or Los Angeles recently, most of them will answer Los Angeles. To be more specific, I think DMO can promote closer destinations to travelers by filter, motive, and behavior. Different behaviors and motivations will always affect the destination, young people will choose to go further than older people. To sum up, the distance delay will always help DMO to know what kind of destination they should promote because only 3 percent of people want to travel over 5000 km.

Student B

What are the implications of distance decay for the tourism industry? Specifically, what can DMO (Destination Marketing Organization) promote its destination by using the concept of distance decay? You may talk about DMO in general or select one destination when answering this question.

Destination marketing organizations’ target markets vary depending on the tourists’ distance from a destination. These tourists are divided into two segments: those who travel short haul and those who are willing to travel long haul. According to the book, the short haul market segment is comprised of young professionals, less affluent and educated individuals, families with young children, and older individuals. The lower costs and required time off involved in traveling short haul provides rationale for the composition of this market segment. On the other hand, the long haul market segment is comprised of more affluent and well-educated individuals who have the financial ability and available time off to travel longer distances. Destination marketing organizations can take these segments into consideration when promoting destinations by adjusting their marketing strategies to target the different markets. For instance, understanding the source markets of a destination will allow the destination marketing organization to identify the most and least predominant market segments. This provides the opportunity to more heavily target certain market segments based on the distance of tourists’ origin to the destination.

What factors would cause an Allocentric tourist to select a Psychocentric destination?

Although allocentric tourists are venturers who seek out non-tourist destinations and prefer long haul trips, they may choose to travel to more traditional, psychocentric destinations due to various factors. First, the concept of distance decay in tourism is reinforced as the book’s graph depicts psychocentric destinations being the most recent trips for allocentric tourists. Factors influencing distance decay such as time availability and cost of travel apply to allocentric tourists, which may restrict them from traveling to the allocentric destinations they desire. Additionally, considering allocentric tourists are very active and are known for taking many trips per year, it is unrealistic to assume that they all have the financial ability and available time off to take multiple long haul trips in one year. Therefore, allocentric tourists will most likely take more short haul trips to psychocentric destinations to satisfy their desire to travel.