plog's psychographic model of tourism

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Tourism Planning and Destination Marketing, 2nd Edition

ISBN : 978-1-80455-889-8 , eISBN : 978-1-80455-888-1

Publication date: 16 January 2024

One of the most well-known, seminal models in the tourism field is the one proposed 50 years ago by Stanley C. Plog. His venturesomeness model has been widely cited in journal articles, textbooks, and has also been used as a reference for planning and designing tourism marketing projects. However, empirical research using Plog's psychographics has yielded varied results, some of which have corroborated his model, while others have found partial or no support for some postulates. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to offer an exhaustive review of 47 studies in the literature which have employed Plog's venturesomeness concept to examine travelers' personality traits, attitudes, and behavior, synthetizing empirical findings and drawing conclusions from the cumulative results. A discussion of the model's contribution to the current body of knowledge, managerial implications for tourism practitioners, and directions for future research are presented.

• Venturesomeness
• Allocentrism
• Psychocentrism
• Psychographics
• Personality
• Tourist typology

Cruz-Milán, O. (2024), "A Review of Empirical Research on Plog's Psychographics in Tourism", Camilleri, M.A. (Ed.) Tourism Planning and Destination Marketing, 2nd Edition , Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-888-120241001

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Plog's Model of Personality-Based Psychographic Traits in Tourism: A Review of Empirical Research

2018, Tourism Planning and Destination Marketing

Empirical research on Plog's psychographic model has yielded varied, inconclusive results, and the postulates of his conceptual framework are still subject to academic scrutiny. While some empirical investigations have corroborated the model, others have found partial or no support for it. Therefore , the purpose of this chapter is to offer an exhaustive review of 26 studies in the literature which have employed Plog´s venturesomeness concept to examine travellers' personality traits, attitudes, and behaviour, as a way to synthetise empirical findings and draw conclusions from the cumulative results. A discussion of the model's contribution to the current body of knowledge and managerial implications for tourism marketing practitioners are presented.

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Plog’s Tourist Motivation Model

Plog’s tourist motivation model (1974) is a popular framework widely referred to in tourism studies . According to the model tourists can be divided into two broad categories: allocentrics and psychocentrics. Allocentrics usually choose exotic destinations and unstructured tours and vacations they prefer to get involved with local culture to a great extent. Psychocentrics, on the other hand, choose familiar destinations and they usually engage in tourism via packaged tours in a conventional manner (Plog, 1974).

The terms of allocentrics and polycentric were later replaced by Plog (1974) to the terms of venturer and dependable respectively, in order to make them more ‘reader-friendly’ (Hudson, 2008).

Plog’s (1974) Psychographic Personality Types

Source: Hudson (2008), adapted from Plog (1974) and Plog (2002)

As it is evident from figure above, according to Plog’s tourist motivation model the majority of tourists can be classified as mid-centric, i.e. they do not belong to neither psychocentric or allocentric categories. Plog’s (1974) Psychographic Personality Types has been criticised for being difficult to be applied because individuals may travel motivated by different factors in different occasions (Hudson, 2008). In other words, an individual may choose an exotic destination for tourism and get closely involved with local culture, yet it may not be appropriate to brand the individual as allocentric because the same person may purchase a conventional tourism package the following year.

Hudson, S. (2008) “Tourism and Hospitality Marketing: A Global Perspective” SAGE Publications

Plog, S.C. (1974) “Why Destination areas rise and fall in popularity” Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Quarterly , Vol.14, Issue:4

Plog, S.C. (2002) “The power of psychographics and the concept of venturesomeness” Journal of Travel Research , Vol.40

Understanding Psychographics in Tourism: A Tool for Segmenting Tourists

• First Online: 01 January 2022

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• Sumedha Agarwal 3 &
• Priya Singh 3  

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Psychographic segmentation is related to people’s interests, personality, lifestyle, values and attitude. It is considered vital as it provides a narrower and targeted approach to study the consumers. The takeaways from the chapters are: the concept of psychographics and its applicability in the tourism industry, the importance of psychographic segmentation in tourism marketing, Psychographic Segmentation and Activities, Interests and Opinions (AIO), consumer delight and its relationship with market segmentation, and the psychographic behaviour of future tourists.

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Agarwal, S., Singh, P. (2021). Understanding Psychographics in Tourism: A Tool for Segmenting Tourists. In: Sharma, A., Hassan, A. (eds) Future of Tourism in Asia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1669-3_12

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Plog’s Model of Tourists Behavior

Plog classifies tourists into three categories as described below −

Allocentric (The Wanderers) − A tourist who seeks new experiences and adventure in a wide range of activities. This person is outgoing and self-confident in behavior. An allocentric person prefers to fly and to explore new and unusual areas before others do so. Allocentrics enjoy meeting people from foreign or different cultures. They prefer good hotels and food, but not necessarily modern or chain-type hotels. For a tour package, an allocentric would like to have the basics such as transportation and hotels, but not be committed to a structured itinerary. They would rather have the freedom to explore an area, make their own arrangements and choose a variety of activities and tourist attractions.

Psychocentric (The Repeater) − A tourist falling in this category is usually non-adventuresome. They prefer to return to familiar travel destinations where they can relax and know what types of food and activity to expect. Such tourists prefer to drive to destinations, stay in typical accommodations, and eat at family-type restaurants.

Midcentric (Combination) − This category of tourists covers the ones who swing between the above said two types.

Henley Centre Model of Holidaymaking

A British Consultancy of Futurology, Henley Center has divided the tourists into four phases −

Phase I- Bubble Travelers − They do not have much money as well as knowledge. They prefer packaged tours. They long to observe different cultures without being a part of it. They travel mostly out of curiosity.

Phase II- Idealized Experience Seekers − They are confident tourists with the experience of foreign tours. They are flexible and comfortable. They prefer tour offers made for individuals.

Phase III- Seasoned Travelers − These tourists are more affluent than the idealized-experience seekers. They are more confident to experiment and experience different places and environments. They are more adventurous and prefer individualistic tours.

Phase IV- Complete Immersers − These tourists have an intention of immersing completely into the foreign culture, heritage, culinary experience, and language. Their holidaying is well-planned but not well-structured.

In the above phases, the tourist goes through different phases and therefore also seeks different tourism options or destinations.

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