of tourism, too.133 The main purpose of some tourist activities is simply to shop. Doing leisure shopping is not a simple economic activity to meet your functional demands. It is a social activity and cultural event that satisfies your desire for experiences. This may be seen in the light of shopping in general as a means of creating your identity, benefiting from increasing leisure time and living conditions. Shopping is fun and as a consumer, one may even be addicted to shopping, almost just like any kind of drugs and drinking.
Shopping is one of the most common motives for leisure travel in the world. For example this is the case in the US and UK. Leisure consumption is part of the general shopping patterns and types of shoppers that market analysts and retailing follow closely. Tourist shoppers can properly be categorized as active shoppers, price shoppers, leisure shoppers or even social shoppers, going to the mall to show somebody around or meet somebody.
Shopping is different from buying. While buying refers to obtaining a specific item from a seller, shopping also includes servicing and social needs. For example, you might be looking for innovative ideas and products and the leisure experience is more important than the buying act. In general, recreational shoppers often do not know what they want to buy and do not mind distance of travel. They will also tend to make more spontaneous buys, shop more often, spend more time shopping per trip, shop with others, and continue shopping after making a purchase. Socializing is an important part of leisure shopping, shopping with friends and family, especially teenagers and elderly. Recreational shoppers are more inclined to enjoy the complete process of retail consumption, including pleasant and playful surroundings and presentations. As a result, shopping malls are being designed to attract leisure shoppers as a place where they can go and enjoy various activities besides shopping. Shopping is also related to leisure visits to heritage destinations, for example at historic sites, or even sunbathing. In recent years, shopping centers and malls are increasingly seeking to attract leisure shoppers, organizing and designing shopping areas and surroundings accordingly.
Besides consumer experiences at shopping venues, Internet shopping is becoming popular as a recreational activity, too, although still much less important than physical shopping in retail stores. Many feel e-commerce is safer, you can search a wide selection of products, and you can avoid crowds, if you do not like to socialize too much.
Shopping as an added attraction to the destination being visited probably accounts for the majority of tourist shopping. Shopping as the primary reason for taking a trip is an important factor for millions of travelers each year, too. Indeed, the tourism industry offers many specialized international shopping tours in Europe, North America and Asia, for example Christmas shopping in London or Paris, escorted shopping tours in Florence to famous fashion shops, and shopping tours to Mexico for fine crafts and jewelry. The driving forces behind shopping include the selection of merchandise, destination, and price advantages. Themed shopping is an important part of tourism in many places, including festivals and other spectacular events that mix culture, food and maybe ethnicity. Hong Kong is one of the world’s attractive shopping cities, similar to New York and London. Large malls and shopping centers function as magnates of tourism shopping. In connection with multi-millions attractions such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Disneyland, shopping is part of the experience, too. Finally, price reductions or simply lower prices in another country motivate many people to travel for shopping, for example from the US to Mexico.
Combining attraction and shopping is the most popular form of tourism shopping. When you travel to other cities, heritage destinations, sunny beaches, ski resorts, or for gambling in Las Vegas there is always an additional shopping element. And the destinations and resorts make sure that shopping potentials are supplied. Between destinations and shopping there is a synergy. Even people who do not normally like to shop (primarily men) participate more in shopping activities while on vacation. On vacations everybody has the time to shop, whereas most people are often too busy at home to shop for fun.
Shopping travels are also motivated by the quest for authenticity, when visiting heritage destinations, crafts destinations, etc. In the end, authenticity is a matter of the meanings that the tourist assigns to their merchandise. Novelty seeking in tourism shopping is another motive for traveling. Some nationalities are very keen shoppers, for example the Japanese, who typically spend more money on each trip than Europeans and Americans, among other things because brands and prestige are important elements to the Japanese, including the custom of gift-giving.
The things that tourists buy may often be categorized as products of fashion, including clothing and shoes, jewelry, leather, watches, cosmetics, fine art, crafts, etc. that may take the form of souvenirs to remind you of the place visited. Shopping venues are placed at destinations, including city centers, heritage sites, beach towns, as well as travel points such as airports. At large airports, for example, virtually all the well-known brands of fashion run duty free shops, just as the international ferry lines do.
Management initiatives are required to attract people. This includes shopping policies, marketing, design of, for example, city quarters to make enjoyable shopping environments, and interior design, as well as infrastructure and regulations. Given the enormous demand for shopping by tourists, many destinations are preparing shopping promotional campaigns and developing shopping policies. Often tourism companies and organizations join hands with town and city shopping centers and trade organizations to promote their destination as an attractive shopping place.
2 OECD (2007). Innovation and Growth in Tourism. Paris: OECD.
3 World Tourism Organization (UNTWO) (2007). Historical Perspective of World Tourism. Facts and Figures. UNWTO (2008). Tourism 2020 Vision. www.unwto.org.
4 OECD (2001). Measuring the Role of Tourism in OECD Economies. UNWTO (2000-2007). The Tourism Satellite Account. Eurostat (2001). European Implementation Manual on Tourism Satellite Accounts.
5 The EU statistics on tourism, for example, are based on travel of minimum 4 overnights: Eurostat (2008). Panorama on Tourism. http://.eurostatec.europa.eu. Nor are many local and national tourism activities and effects included in tourism accounts: Smeral, Egon (2006). ‘Tourism Satellite Accounts: A Critical Assessment’. Journal of Travel Research, vol. 45, 92-98. A review of the worldwide problems of implementing satellite accounts at the national level is: Marion Libreros, Antonio Massieu, and Scott Meis (2006). ‘Progress in Tourism Satellite Account Implementation and Development’, Journal of Travel Research, vol. 45, 83-91. The difficulties in economic measuring of tourism are also connected with the conceptual problem of defining a tourist: McCabe, Scott (2005). ‘Who is Tourist? A Critical Review’. Tourist Studies, vol. 5, 85-106.
6 World Travel & Tourism Council (2007). The 2007 Travel & Tourism Economic Research: www.wttc.org.
7 For example, the Danish tourism satellite account is almost fifty percent higher than the traditional account: VisitDenmark (2006). Turismen i Danmark 2000-2004 (Danish Tourism): www.visitdenmark.com.
8 Travel Industry Association of America (TIA)(2007). US Travel Market Overview: www.tia.org. Eurostat. Panorama on Tourism.
9 Auliana Poon (1993). Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies, 30-32. Wallingford, UK: C.A.B. International. Smelser and Baltes. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ‘Tourism’. www.wikepedia.org: Tourism/History.
10 The relationship
