IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/touman/v33y2012i6p1373-1384.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the viability of university alumni as a repeat visitor market

Author

Listed:
  • Schofield, Peter
  • Fallon, Paul

Abstract

Both student and repeat visitor markets have been recognised by tourism academics and destination marketing agencies, but the alumni repeat visitor market has been neglected. The paper examines alumni propensity to return as tourists to their university city using a sample of graduates from a university in the North West of England. The large majority returned to the destination as tourists within six months of graduation, although visitation declined sharply after the first return visit. A cluster analysis using both motivation and constraint dimensions identified six a posteriori segments. Three of these were found to have significant potential because of their strong emotional attachment to the destination rather than the university. The accessibility of segments for targeting, through the development of links between the DMO and the educational institution, also supports their commercial viability.

Suggested Citation

  • Schofield, Peter & Fallon, Paul, 2012. "Assessing the viability of university alumni as a repeat visitor market," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1373-1384.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:33:y:2012:i:6:p:1373-1384
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2011.12.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517711002895
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.12.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campo-Martínez, Sara & Garau-Vadell, Joan B. & Martínez-Ruiz, María Pilar, 2010. "Factors influencing repeat visits to a destination: The influence of group composition," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 862-870.
    2. Fuchs, Galia & Reichel, Arie, 2011. "An exploratory inquiry into destination risk perceptions and risk reduction strategies of first time vs. repeat visitors to a highly volatile destination," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 266-276.
    3. Assaker, Guy & Vinzi, Vincenzo Esposito & O’Connor, Peter, 2011. "Examining the effect of novelty seeking, satisfaction, and destination image on tourists’ return pattern: A two factor, non-linear latent growth model," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 890-901.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bokolo Anthony, 2021. "Information Flow Analysis of a Knowledge Mapping-Based System for University Alumni Collaboration: a Practical Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(2), pages 756-787, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Brida & Juan Pereyra & Raffaele Scuderi, 2014. "Repeat tourism in Uruguay: modelling truncated distributions of count data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 475-491, January.
    2. Hwang, Syjung & Kim, Jina & Park, Eunil & Kwon, Sang Jib, 2020. "Who will be your next customer: A machine learning approach to customer return visits in airline services," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 121-126.
    3. Jun Kim Sang, 2016. "The structural relationships of destination image, awareness, uniqueness and destination loyalty in periurban ecotourism destination," European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation, Sciendo, vol. 7(3), pages 212-225, December.
    4. Chew, Elaine Yin Teng & Jahari, Siti Aqilah, 2014. "Destination image as a mediator between perceived risks and revisit intention: A case of post-disaster Japan," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 382-393.
    5. Almeida-Santana, Arminda & Moreno-Gil, Sergio, 2018. "Understanding tourism loyalty: Horizontal vs. destination loyalty," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 245-255.
    6. Sanja Kovačić & Tamara Jovanović & Miroslav D. Vujičić & Alastair M. Morrison & James Kennell, 2022. "What Shapes Activity Preferences? The Role of Tourist Personality, Destination Personality and Destination Image: Evidence from Serbia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, February.
    7. NaHyun Lee & Bong-Seok Kim, 2023. "Differences of Host Country-Destination Image Assessment for International Students According to Risk Perception in COVID-19 Tourism," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, July.
    8. Juan Brida & Marta Disegna & Raffaele Scuderi, 2014. "The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2817-2840, September.
    9. Bui, Huong T. & Saito, Hiroaki, 2022. "Resource convergence for post disaster recovery," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Stylos, Nikolaos & Vassiliadis, Chris A. & Bellou, Victoria & Andronikidis, Andreas, 2016. "Destination images, holistic images and personal normative beliefs: Predictors of intention to revisit a destination," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 40-60.
    11. Chan, Elisa K., 2023. "Pandemic experience and locus of protection," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    12. Zaitul Zaitul & Ilona Desi & Novianti Neva, 2022. "Village-Based Tourism Performance: Tourist Satisfaction and Revisit Intention," Polish Journal of Sport and Tourism, Sciendo, vol. 29(2), pages 36-43, June.
    13. Yürük, Pınar & Akyol, Ayşe & Şimşek, Gülhayat Gölbaşı, 2017. "Analyzing the effects of social impacts of events on satisfaction and loyalty," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 367-378.
    14. Jorge Moll-de-Alba & Lluís Prats & Lluís Coromina, 2016. "The need to adapt to travel expenditure patterns. A study comparing business and leisure tourists in Barcelona," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 253-267, August.
    15. Xiufang Jiang & Jianxiong Qin & Jianguo Gao & Mollie G Gossage, 2022. "The mediation of perceived risk’s impact on destination image and travel intention: An empirical study of Chengdu, China during COVID-19," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, January.
    16. Glückstad, Fumiko Kano & Schmidt, Mikkel N. & Mørup, Morten, 2020. "Testing a model of destination image formation: Application of Bayesian relational modelling and fsQCA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 351-363.
    17. Su, Lujun & Swanson, Scott R., 2017. "The effect of destination social responsibility on tourist environmentally responsible behavior: Compared analysis of first-time and repeat tourists," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 308-321.
    18. Hajibaba, Homa & Gretzel, Ulrike & Leisch, Friedrich & Dolnicar, Sara, 2015. "Crisis-resistant tourists," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 46-60.
    19. Barnes, Stuart J. & Mattsson, Jan & Sørensen, Flemming, 2014. "Destination brand experience and visitor behavior: Testing a scale in the tourism context," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 121-139.
    20. Cardoso, Lucília & Dias, Francisco & de Araújo, Arthur Filipe & Andrés Marques, Maria Isabel, 2019. "A destination imagery processing model: Structural differences between dream and favourite destinations," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 81-94.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:33:y:2012:i:6:p:1373-1384. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/tourism-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.