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Keywords Lifestyles, Market segmentation, Consumer behaviour, Tourism
Abstract The swift and wide-ranging changes that present-day society is undergoing are leading to an increasing personalization in consumer behaviour patterns. These are increasingly less well explained by socio-demographic and economic criteria. This effect seems to be particularly well reflected in tourism. As one of the chief characteristics of this market is its heterogeneity, there is a need to include other variables, such as lifestyle, in order to segment it more adequately. This would permit a greater depth of knowledge of the variables influencing tourist behaviours, rendering them accessible to businesses, which could thus better satisfy tourists' needs and wants by matching the services they offer more efficiently to them. Defines the construct "lifestyle" based on the activities, interests and opinions approach. Offers in addition certain innovations of scholarly interest, but also of practical use for business. Although this variable is not a brand-new concept, it is still being actively researched.
Introduction
The explanatory value of traditional criteria is in steady decline. This is because the individuals who together make up the market every day provide examples of very similar purchase behaviour patterns on the part of people differing considerably in socio-economic and demographic terms and vice versa, with growing personalization of consumer habits being observed. Hence, such criteria are tending to be used only as variables describing the market as a whole.
The deep and wide-ranging changes which present-day society is undergoing must also be taken into account, among them being the increasing numbers of single-person households, a decrease in the average number of members making up families, the entry of women (better and better qualified) into the labour market, and the growth in purchasing power of households. This leads to the conclusion that the evolution of society is the principal cause of the need to include further criteria (lifestyles) as essential variables in detailed knowledge of consumers. This paper considers the place that these variables hold in overall consumer behaviour.
Integrating lifestyles into overall consumer behaviour models
Generalisations on global models
There are various models that endeavour to explain consumer behaviour. Their origin lies in the considerable differences that separate consumers, the various kinds of purchase decision and the contexts in which they are...