The Importance Of Leisure Shopping In Tourism Industry

Objective of the Report

Tourism now a day is the most popular activity and growing worldwide. Tourism helps to grow a country`s economy (Hurst & Niehm, 2012). The significance of tourism is sells some parts of country to the foreign or native tourists which appears as a main earnings for the people who are directly involved with this business. Due to the growing popularity, tourism has become an industry in any country. One of the factors in tourism which attracts tourist towards the place is leisure shopping. The leisure shopping helps to generate revenue of a country as shopping is now considered increasing leisure activity. The activity inter connected with tourism as people buy things from the places they visit (Alegre & Cladera, 2012). Leisure shopping, acts as a stimulator to the tourists as well as to the tourist spots. An economy of a country always follow the development which means any economic model changes according to the most flourish industry which develops a country`s economy. If a country earlier relied on the agriculture and other manufacturing industry but if tourism starts to contribute more money to the country then the focus may shift from agriculture and manufacturing and mining industry (Cahyanto, Pennington-Gray & Thapa, 2013). Tourism industry deals with the natural beauty, historical places, ethnicity, handicrafts and food. The definition of tourism has changed. Now tourism means spending free time by eating and shopping. This activity is considered as leisure shopping. Leisure service is able to draw more customers if the service provides a quality leisure time.

Tourism can be categorized in two category, eco tourism and cultural tourism. Leisure shopping has become one of main factor of tourism industry. It helps to boost up a place`s economy. The leisure shopping sometimes confuses the shoppers, as they have no idea what kind of items the foreign tourists want to buy. The tastes of urban visitors completely different from the rural shoppers but they encourage them to buy locally made food and clothes, accessories and showpieces. During that, the shopper faces a challenge regarding the buying behavior of the foreign tourists. The main objective of the report is to identify the problem regarding buying behavior and product availability.

• Why do not visitors buy local products when exploring these villages?
• What kind of products do these tourists like to purchase often while travelling?
• Which kind of people buys the local products socio-demographic wise?

There are many articles, which state the reason behind tourists do not tend to buy souvenirs. The souvenirs sometimes come up with cliché design, sometimes lack the authenticity of the place maybe just to draw the attention of the tourists. Souvenirs are for keep a memory of the trip of a particular place. The souvenirs with ethnic touch of the particular place mainly attract people. It is witnessed that, some shoppers sell souvenirs at a very high price. Some products are very poor in terms of quality. The primary point of the report is to study and find out the reasons of not understanding the customers.

Research Questions

To evaluate the consumer need at tourist spot the market opportunity needs to be understood. To understand the market opportunity data examination is essential. For that, question answer is the method to collect data. Demography is another factor for which buying behavior of tourists is influenced highly. Here Indonesian cultural village Brayut is chosen to examine the crisis that is faced by the local shoppers (Edwards, Raggatt & Small , 2013).

The retailers need to understand the market segment because the preference varies due to that segmentation and the preferences depends on the nature of the tourists whether they are domestic or foreign. According to a survey, conducted by Hurst and Niehm the leisure shopping is comparatively satisfying to foreign tourists than the domestic tourists. In that study it was shown that, 50% of the tourists both domestic and foreign are neutral towards leisure shopping. The Brayut village is situated in Indonesia and it is a popular tourist spots for its widely known social culture. Among the rests, the 34% are satisfied with the locally made souvenirs and 16% of the total tourists both domestic and foreign are found dissatisfied with the handicrafts they buy during leisure shopping. This result proves that there are some challenges regarding the leisure shopping in rural areas. that The interview was conducted between two groups of people. The division was made depending on the responses of the people. Leisure shopping is one of the factors lying behind the development of tourism. The development in tourism in rural areas helps to shape the economy of the rural areas, which leads to increase in some social opportunities. This step uplifts the quality of the life of the people who live in the particular rural area. There are few factors by which the shopping experience can be identified. The factors like quality of air, cleanliness, comfort, lighting these are all environmental factors (Meng & Xu 2012). The design factors are display, signage, price tag, payment options, verity of the product and quality of the product. Social factors like quality of crowd, attitude of the shoppers, communication of the shopper (Choi, Heo & Law, 2016).. The entire shopping experience depends on these factors and all these factors are interconnected with each other. The process of shopping such as the degree of expenditure influences the buying behavior of the tourists. The favorable environment is needed as leisure shopping is for spending quality time.

Literature Review

One thing that can affect the shopper, if the market design is changed because it affects the local people, which may impede the production of the handicrafts for the tourists. To encourage the tourists in leisure shopping, by engaging them in festivals, cultural events, fair, exhibition and street entertainments. Socio-demographic profile, gender, age and earning this entire play vital role in terms of leisure shopping. Shopping during tourism is considered as the contemporary form of tourism (Meng & Xu 2012). In recent days people look forward to shop in abroad while travelling. Technically people want to purchase goods from outside their home environment. The items bought in leisure shopping have a significance of carrying the memory of that place. It is also seen that, 53% of the purchased goods are clothes, cigarettes, 44% of the purchased items are local drink and rest 34.8% are handicrafts (Letho et al., 2014). On the contrary, in case of American travelers, 77% of the purchased goods are clothes, 42% of bought items are books and remaining 49% are souvenirs. It is evident that the buying behavior varies widely during trip depending on the socio-demographic factors, age and gender.    

From this review, it is clear that in order to understand the buying behavior retailers in rural areas need to analyze the preferences of the tourists according to the country, age and gender to meet their expectations. To provide with adequate service it is essential to understand the factors, which influence the buying behaviors (Ceunynck et al., 2013). The preferred items vary from country to country which helps the retailer to figure out the customers preferences. Customers` socio-demographic position also influences the market segmentation, which helps the rural retailers to understand the target customers and the variables that influence the buying intentions.  

A research design implies that a plan which is previously made for a particular research. The research design tells the process and the method of the research (Ceunynck et al., 2013). The report on leisure shopping was done by data collecting, measuring and analyzing the collected data. After a systematic process a conclusion is given with simplification of the research problem (Sekaran & Bougie 2016). For data collection a questionnaire is made, taking into consideration about propose, and the subject of the research Brayut cultural village is chosen. A descriptive study is conducted to analyze the socio demographic background of the people, which help to find out the buying pattern and the attitude of the village retailers towards their customers.

Research Design

Variables of the research depend on problems of the research. Here the research variables are ambiance, socio-demographic back ground, price, product, crowd, product variety and retailer customer relationship. These variables help to develop research questionnaire (Sekaran & Bougie 2013).

Sampling is a method which is devised in a data analysis where the entities on which the research is carried on are selected from the larger population. Population means the number of people/entities on which the research can be carried out. For example if 100 people are eligible/entities for the research, out of them a certain number of people/entities are chosen to conduct the research smoothly. The numbers of entities, which are chosen from the larger population, are the reflections of the bigger population (Rid, Ezeuduji, & Pröbstl-Haider, 2014). By conducting a research on these people, a researcher could certainly get an idea or result of his research. Now, for the convenience and considering the type of research that one carries out, the different types of sampling opted by the researcher. The two different types of sampling are probability and non-probability sampling. For the research purpose, researchers have devised non-probability sampling, where can be or cannot be a chance for each item to come up during the research. Researchers have selected the quota sampling under the non-probability sampling method. Quota sampling is done where a researcher has an aim to attain a certain number of entities, upon whom the research can be carried on. Researchers have selected 52,000 people to conduct my research on leisure shopping. Out of 52,000 people who have been surveyed, 30% were male, rest 55% was female, and 15% of the people were found not interested to participate in survey.

In case of American tourists, the preference of product varies. It is seen that American travelers buy 77% of the purchased goods are clothes, 25% of bought items are books and remaining 49% are souvenirs. On the contrary, British travelers are keener on purchasing books and souvenir rather than clothes.

Answers of the Research Questions

• Why do not visitors buy local products when exploring these villages?

The buying behavior of the tourists depends on the atmosphere, crowd quality, product quality, pricing. It happens when tourists find retailers behavior unfavorable or the product is not desirable to the tourists. Sometimes, the products are overpriced, which turn away tourists from buying the products. In leisure shopping people usually buy items as souvenirs which will remember them about the place. Hence, the tourists expect the items to be exceptional with a signature touch of that specific place. Most of the time the items appear less unique and disappoint the buyers.

• What kind of products do these tourists like to purchase often while travelling?

Research Variables

The products with signature touch of a particular place attract the tourist’s attention. Clothes, handicrafts, local food tourists like to purchase on their trip. The products need to have ethnic touch on it. At any tourist spot people generally buy service. That means, along with the products there are some factors that influence the buying behavior such as the behavior of the retailer. The buying behavior of the tourists depends on the places they belong. Such as, American tourists mostly buy clothes and handicrafts. According to the market survey, 53% of the purchased goods are clothes, cigarettes, 44% of the purchased items are local drink and rest 34.8% are handicrafts.

• Which kind of people buys the local products socio-demographic wise?

The socio-demographic factor is very important to measure buying behavior. In case of social factors, family plays an important role to influence buying items. The decision making of the family has an effect on buying products. In case of a bachelor or a newly married couple the choosing of items from the market changes. Social class also defines the buying behavior as with social class affordability comes. Age, gender, family background, education and psychological factor are considered as demographic factors. These factors influence the consumer behavior as with age the preferences change. According to the gender the buying behavior changes specially in case of clothing and accessories.

There are some ethical issues regarding data collection. During the data collection it might happen that the tourist has already been in that place earlier. The researcher should appear trustworthy in front of people who are being interviewed. The research and data collection should seem authentic to the people. Researcher should follow the research ethics to maintain proper behavior and relationship with the people. One thing a researcher keeps in mind that no one gets suffered due to research process (Tani, 2014). The primary principle a researcher should follow the research ethics in order to perform a smooth data collection process. It is a researcher’s responsibility to keep the research harmless. People should be given the choice to participate in research. The research should be biased free and proper justice should be done. Justice is in a sense that no one is forced to do anything beyond their will. The researcher must protect the confidentiality by not revealing the participants name. Participants are given with the choice of avoiding questions. Researchers should respect the freedom of speech of the participants. A previously prepared questionnaire should be distributed to the people and before that a clear idea of the research should be briefed to them. Questionnaire should be truthful and honest and free from complication which may lead to the misinterpretation.  

Conclusion

The report deals with the buying behavior of the customer during leisure shopping in rural areas. To conduct the research an Indonesian village is chosen named, Brayut. A detailed literature review is given on the problem or challenges faced by the rural retailers as they are unable to understand the target customers and the preference of purchasing products of tourists (Miller, 2013). A detailed discussion on the variables like socio-demographic environment of the tourists, age, gender was done in the literature review. Quota sampling is chosen for collecting the data to perform the research. The research also faced some gaps. In the first part of the literature review, the research question is why not visitors buy local products when exploring these villages (Rabbiosi, 2015). These factors could have an influence on why the visitors don’t buy local products and they are not only the influence that determines whether to buy or not to buy local products from retailers in rural areas.   

References

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Sekaran, U. & Bougie, R. (2016). Research Methods for Business: A Skills Building Approach (7th Ed.).  West Sussex, UK: Wiley

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