Towards a Classification of Cultural Tourists

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int. J. Tourism Res. 4, 29±38 +2002) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.346 Towards a Classi®cation of Cultural Tourists Bob McKercher* Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, SAR ABSTRACT consumer base, without considering that different types of cultural tourists may seek This paper proposes a model to segment the qualitatively different experiences or may be cultural tourism market according to two capable of engaging attractions at different dimensions: i) the importance of cultural levels. motives in the decision to visit a destination This paper proposes a model to segment the and ii) depth of experience. The model is cultural tourism market according to two tested empirically using Hong Kong as a case dimensions: +i) the importance of cultural study. The test identi®ed ®ve discrete motives in the decision to visit a destination cultural tourism market segments that and +ii) depth of experience.The model is exhibited substantially different behaviour. tested empirically using Hong Kong as a case Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. study.The model has been proposed to advance the examination of cultural tourism as a tourism activity. Received 8 September 2000; revised 6 December 2000; accepted In this paper, terms such as shallow, deep, 12 December 2000 super®cial and meaningful are used to de- scribe different types of experiences engaged Keywords: cultural tourism; classi®cation in by cultural tourists.The terms are used as system; segmentation; Hong Kong. descriptors only; they are not used in a judgmental sense to imply that one type of INTRODUCTION activity is preferable to another or that one type of tourist is a more worthy type of cultural n spite of the fact that it has been recognised tourist than another. I as a separate product category since the late 1970s +Tighe 1986), the study of Lessons learned from ecotourism cultural tourism as a tourism activity, rather than as a subset of cultural heritage manage- Cultural tourism seems to be following a ment, is still largely in its infancy.In particular, similar evolutionary path as ecotourism did the examination of business elements of some 10 to 15 years ago.Early proponents of cultural tourism, in general, and the cultural ecotourism were enthusiastic supporters of tourism market, in particular, is typi®ed by this `new' type of tourism that ideally attracted descriptive and unsophisticated analysis.The a `new' type of tourist who wanted a more majority of the research produced by public meaningful and socially responsible tourism sector agencies and cultural tourism advocates experience.They embarked on research that, is focused on documenting the size of the by current standards, could best be described as unsophisticated, bordering on boosterism. The focus was on documenting the number of *Correspondence to: B.McKercher, Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong ecotourists, with the simplest approach being Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, SAR. to count participation in named activities. Email: [email protected] More by hope than by empirical assessment, Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 30 B. McKercher a leap of faith was then made inferring mulgated about the size and presumed causality between participation and motiva- importance of cultural tourism.The World tion.The presumption was made that anyone Tourism Organisation, for instance, estimated who participated in an ecotourism activity that the cultural tourism currently accounts for must be the deep ecotourist so desired by 37% of all tourist trips and that demand is proponents. growing by 15% per annum +Richards, 1996). As a result, fantastic numbers were promul- Antolovic +1999) indicates that 70% of all gated about the size and implied importance of Americans travelling to Europe seek a cultural the ecotourism market.The World Tourism heritage experience and that about two-thirds Organisation, for example, proclaimed that of all visitors to the UK are seeking a cultural 20% of all international tourists are ecotourists heritage tourism experience as part of their +WTO, 1998).Moreover, the assumption was trip, but not necessarily as the main reason to fostered that ecotourists represented a hom- visit the UK.Nearly half of all American ogeneous group of travellers that was typi®ed domestic travellers, or almost 65 million by the idealised deep ecotourist.Because these people, participated in some type of cultural ®gures served a multitude of political pur- or heritage tourism activity, such as visiting a poses, they were endorsed widely and un- historic site or museum, or attending a musical critically. arts or other cultural event in 1996 +Miller, As the ®eld of study matured and as the 1997; Craine, 1998; Kemmerling-Clack, 1999). initial fervour about ecotourism was replaced These estimates are derived using an opera- by the realisation that commercial demand for tional de®nition documenting cultural tourism deep ecotourism experiences was much less participation.A cultural tourist is de®ned as than the raw numbers suggested +McKercher someone who visits, or intends to visit, a and Robbins, 1998), some people began to take cultural tourism attraction, art gallery, mu- a more critical look at the ecotourism market. seum or historic site, attend a performance or Their research revealed that there are different festival, or participate in a wide range of other segments within the loosely de®ned ecotour- activities at any time during their trip, regard- ism market +Blamey, 1997; Diamantis, 1999) less of their main reason for travelling.Like the and that, indeed, ecotourists came in many use of an operational de®nition in ecotourism, shades of green +Pearce and Wilson, 1996; this approach provides a crude estimation of Acott et al., 1998; Dowling and Charters, 1999). participation.As any operational de®nition, Only a small number of `deep' green, com- however, it is de®cient in a number of areas. mitted ecotourists exist who satisfy the uto- The inability to distinguish between different pian criteria of being highly motivated by types of cultural tourists can lead to the green principles and seeking a deep, mean- formation of a misleading indicator of the ingful experience.The majority, on the other importance of cultural tourism in attracting hand, either participate in ecotourism activi- tourists to an area, as using a label infers ties primarily for recreational or sightseeing causality when no such link can be justi®ed. reasons or see it as one the many ancillary Stating that x% of tourists are `cultural tourists' activities they can pursue while at a destina- suggests that this many travellers are moti- tion.Indeed, Acott et al., +1999) argue that just vated to visit a region for cultural reasons. because someone visits an ecotourism attrac- Further, labels such as `cultural tourist' or tion does not make that person an ecotourist, `ecotourist' have inherent inferences about an or at least not the type of ecotourist normally assumed depth or quality of experience that assumed with such a label. also may not be justi®ed. The cultural tourism market Dimension 1Ðcentrality of cultural tourism in the decision to visit a destination The same can be said about cultural tourism, yet, to date, little research has been published A new approach therefore is needed to examining the market.Instead, similarly im- develop a stronger understanding of the pressive, but generic ®gures are being pro- cultural tourism market.This paper suggests Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 4, 29±38 +2002) Classi®cation of Cultural Tourists 31 that a better understanding of the cultural and a host of other factors.An independent tourism market can be derived by considering tourist who spends four hours at a cultural site the two dimensions of centrality of trip probably will have a qualitatively different purpose and depth of experience. experience than a coach-trip tourist who A growing body of literature is recognising spends only ®ve minutes at the same site, that some people are more highly motivated to simply by virtue of the amount of time in- participate in cultural tourism than others. vested.Thus, two people travelling for similar There is a fundamental difference, for exam- motives may have fundamentally different ple, between a group of people who travel to experiences based on their abilities to engage Bhutan for a month-long, in-depth cultural the site.McIntosh and Prentice +1999) and experience organised by the anthropology Kerstetter et al. +1998) have demonstrated this department of a university and someone concept empirically, illustrating that different visiting Hong Kong on a shopping holiday cultural tourists engage sites at different levels, who happens to visit a temple to escape a rain some more intensely, some less so. storm.It is recognised, therefore, participation Stebbins +1996) uses of the concept `serious alone may not be suf®cient to document intent. leisure' to explain the variability of experience. Silberberg +1995) identi®ed four discrete types To him, cultural tourists are akin to hobbyists, of cultural tourists in Ontario, Canada, ranging people with a profound interest in a topic and from what he described as the greatly moti- who exhibit a certain level of skill, knowledge, vated to the accidental cultural tourist.A study conditioning or experience in pursuit of the of heritage tourism participation in the Ameri- hobby.He identi®es

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