Perceptions-Based Analysis of Tourism Products and Service Providers

Perceptions-based analysis is a general framework for analyzing tourist choice alternatives involving large sets of perceived attributes. Its development in tourism research was encouraged as tourism is characterized by multifaceted choice alternatives such as destinations and other experiential "products" that the tourists cannot succinctly evaluate with a small number of attributes. PBA differentiates between the generic perceptions of a class of choice alternatives (destinations, product/service providers; e.g., "metropolitan city"; "tour operator"), the perceptual profiles of a specific choice alternative ("San Francisco"; "Thomas Cook"), and the profiles of the choice alternatives preferred or actually selected. It condenses the attribute profiles into distinguished perceptual positions and analyzes their competitive relationships by diagnosing the perceptual strengths and weaknesses of the choice alternatives. Further analysis reveals the number of choice decisions made in favor of a uniquely positioned choice alternative or one sharing its position with others. An empirical example for tour operators illustrates the various data processing steps and discusses their policy implications.