Consumer behaviour

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Abstract

This paper critically focuses on Consumer Decision-making Process models of purchase and post-purchase in relation to the hospitality industry. The paper shall determine the extent these models are vague and all-encompassing, especially when applying to postmodern hospitality industry with the fragmented nature of consumer behaviour, and emerging trends in the global provision of products and services.

Scholars interested in the field of consumer behaviours have developed several models as attempts to explain consumers’ decision-making processes when making a purchase, and what follows after the purchase. Gordon and Saunders have identified six of such stages that involve passive and active consumption phases or sequences (Foxall, 2004).

They identify these stages as emerging needs, active consideration, researching, short-listing, purchase and post-purchase. Smith also supports these stages in his work.

A part from these scholars, other scholars have also offered different perspectives on consumer decision-making process (Kotler, Bowen and Makens, 1999; Chambers, Richard and Lewis, Robert, 2000; Onkvisit and Shaw, 1994; Howard and Sheth, 1996). However, critics argue that such models are vague and tend to be all-encompassing.

Introduction

Gabbott and Hogg offer a brief definition of consumer behaviour as “any behaviour involved in the course of buying, using and disposing of products” (Gabbott and Hogg, 1998). Critics have noted that this definition is vague and not practical. From this definition, we can learn that consumer behaviour is a technical issue to describe precisely.

Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard have offered an advance definition of consumer behaviour as “activities which directly involve decision processes prior and after stages of obtaining, consuming and disposing products” (Blackwell Engel and Miniard, 2001). They further explain how consumers choose products and services using a model of Consumer Decision-making Process (CDP).

This model indicates how consumers make decisions before undertaking any purchase decision and post-purchase decision. Consumers make their purchase at the fourth stage after undergoing all other previous stages.

Consumers look at the value of the products or service they have purchased against the satisfaction derived or fulfilled from using the product. This experience is fundamental for defining the fifth stage, post-purchase evaluation, which takes a mental evaluation of the value of the purchase.

We have noted that depending on the CDP model alone may not provide the necessary information when applied in a marketing environment. This is because there are other various factors that influence every process of CDP.

Understanding factors that influence stages of CDP model may help markets persuade consumers who intend to use their products or competitors. Consumers are likely to purchase services or products that have solved their problems in cases of recurring needs. This is a purchase they know.

The CDP model must recognise that factors such as culture, personal preferences, social status, family, and the situation also influence consumers’ purchasing behaviours.

At the individual level, we have attitude, resources, motivation, personality, and knowledge. For instance, we may consider how consumers who are conscious environmental behaviour towards purchasing green products or services in the hospitality industry.

Characteristics of products and services in the hospitality industry

Hospitality industry mainly caters for tourists or visitors have that need a unique range of services and products. We can group these services and products as packages e.g. accommodation and meals, or stand-alone products such as catering, and entertainment, among others.

We shall focus on a combination of services and products at the hospitality industry so as to enable us to understand the consumer decision-making processes when making such purchases.

This sector largely deals in provisions of services. According to marketing studies and theorists, services are intangible purchases. Thus, such purchases never really result into any ownership. In this regard, they offer various characteristics of services as follows. The hospitality industry offer services that are intangible. We can never touch, see, taste, or even smell them before we make the purchase.

Marketers in the field of hospitality offer images of their services, such as accommodation locations and the surrounding environment to make such services appear real to the consumer. This is a means of overcoming intangibility. However, such techniques do not necessarily overcome intangible characteristics of such services as tourists have to care when purchasing such services in the hospitality industry.

Services in the hospitality industry also have inseparability characteristics between production and how the service works during consumption. This characteristic influences consumer’s purchasing behaviour. Consumers may link the service to the provider together with the performance, and change their purchasing pattern if the services do not meet their expectations.

Services also tend to be heterogeneous in nature. This means services providers at the hospitality industry may find it difficult to offer the same service to every consumer when their needs arise. Different aspects like emotional status of the customer may also affect how he or she perceives the service at a certain time.

It means that consumers of hospitality products and services may not be able to predict the quality of services they may receive at their favourite places. In addition, consumers cannot depend on past their experiences in order to make subsequent purchase decisions regarding the same services or products.

There may be inherent changes in the services, service providers, or the consumers themselves that may affect the quality as well as experience of services offered.

Services also lack ownership, at least to the consumer. Consumers only experience the service through their purchases and access. Consumers will not own the service. Thus, services serve the purpose of a need satisfaction rather than tangible ownership. Therefore, purchases of services will have significant effects on emotional aspects of the consumer.

The above characteristics are just some of the aspects that may influence consumers of the hospitality industry. Marketing pundits also look at the distinction between convenience goods and shopping goods. Convenience goods tend to have low prices and high frequencies of purchases, unlike other goods that have high prices with low frequencies of purchases.

In this regard, we look at shopping goods as serving higher-order needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Howard and Sheth note “the purchase of convenience-type goods involves the consumer in a routine problem-solving behaviour, whereas the purchase of shopping goods involves the consumer in an extensive problem-solving behaviour” (Howard and Sheth, 1996).

We can note that consumers will spend a lot of time in order to understand complex issues of services they are about to purchase in the hospitality industry. The acts of choosing tourism destinations and subsequent service providers involve high-level purchases that require consumers to search for information and make informed purchases.

It requires a high-level of commitment, time, and significant spending. Thus, Middleton and Clarke observe that such influences result into low brand loyalty and expectations of repeat purchases, and low chain of distribution (Middleton and Clarke, 2001).

Complexity in Consumer Behaviour in the Hospitality Industry

Consumers involved in purchasing hospitality products and services usually experience some technical issues. Most products and services in the hospitality industry need a high degree of involvement in making purchase decisions and a high degree of consumer commitment. This is due to the nature of products and services that consumers wish to purchase.

Thus, there are no routine or similar behaviour patterns when making such decisions. Consumers consider every purchase unique and need different approaches in making purchase decisions. Consumers in the hospitality industry must first carry out a thorough marketing research before settling on a given decision.

In turn, decision-making processes tend to take longer than when purchasing other products or services. Factors that may influence consumers at this stage may also set in, such as a holiday destination, type of holiday, individual preferences and among other factors.

Consumers link intangible services and products to high levels of insecurity in the purchasing process. The challenge is that consumers cannot have a test of the product before they make any purchase. In this case, most consumers only rely on the assurances from the services or products vendors.

The level of insecurity involved results into complex behaviour patterns where consumers collect information from several sources, including agencies. Information may come from the family, advertisement, travel agents, companies’ Web sites, and social media, among others.

Holidays and visits are significant events in an individual’s life. Thus, there is a considerable level of emotions involved. Holidays restore physical health and provide a chance of escaping the routine of workplaces. Holidays are expensive. This implies that the decision to take a holiday may affect other members of the family, or colleagues in cases of where companies cater for such packages.

This calls for compromises at some points, especially with regard to a holiday destination. There may also be some pressing needs such as purchasing new items, car, improving a home. Thus, family members or colleagues may consider such an expensive holiday a waste of resources.

Consumers who wish to purchase hospitality products and services normally experience strong influences from other people such as family members, colleagues and reference groups. The study of behaviour patterns that are under influences from diverse aspects is extremely difficult. At the same time, such opinion leaders also have tendencies of changing their beliefs and opinions over time.

Most decisions consumers make about visits are long-term decisions that take a considerable amount of time to plan. The challenge is that people may be at different statuses of their minds when they plan their visits, and when they actually go for such visits.

Such decisions depend on aspects of the future that they might not be able to predict. The dynamic nature of the tourism industry may affect such decisions depending on the cost variations, climate changes and lately security.

Purchases made in the hospitality industry involve high levels of search for information. Factors such as emotions and individual preferences may determine the extent to which a consumer will seek for such information.

There is a wide consultation of different sources of information, and the final choice depends on such information gathered. There is a high level of complexity involved as people search for information and make decisions. It may also mean that decisions can change abruptly depending on the new information discovered.

The complex nature of making purchase decision-making processes in a hospitality industry is different from making purchases of other routinely used goods.

The intangible nature, uncertainty of the future and unpredictable of service standards make the process of purchasing services and products a complex experience for consumers. This implies that marketers in may have difficulties when promoting their services and products to such consumers.

The decision-making process in the hospitality industry

The decisions consumers make to buy products and services in the hospitality industry are due to complex processes involved. These factors relate to the consumer, and other external factors that he or she may not be able to control when making a decision of purchasing a service or product without prior experience.

In addition, the nature of products and services in the hospitality industry also make purchase decision-making process a complex affair. For instance, in choosing a holiday destination, consumers consider such factors as the destinations itself, mode of travel, type of accommodation services, the length of the holiday period, the time of the holiday, package of the holiday, and agent to provide tour services.

These are among many factors that may influence the decision-making process of a consumer when choosing a holiday package and subsequent purchase.

We can note that the scope and number of such factors are wide and numerous. We also realise that choosing the destination alone is not enough and not an end in itself. There are issues and activities to engage in once in a holiday destination.

Visitors will also make further decisions regarding how to spend their time, what meals to take, and where to take them among others. We can notice that these decisions look simple. However, they form part of the complex decision-making processes that tourists must critically look before making any purchases.

Decision-making models in hospitality

Cooper and associates provide three processes in the development of consumer behaviour with reference to purchase processes (Cooper et al, 2005). First, there was the early phase of 1930 and 1940s (early empiricist) where emphasis was on empirical research. Still, the industry tried to establish effects of advertising, product distribution, and promotion decisions.

Second, there was the motivational phase in the 1950s where attention focused on “focus groups, in-depth interviews and consumers’ perception studies, and other projective approaches” (Cooper et al., 2005).

The focus was on what factors motivate consumers to make their purchases. Third, there was the formative phase. This phase included published textbooks by consumer behaviour theorists such as Engel, Blackwell, Kollat, Howard and Sheth.

Most early approaches on the study of consumer behaviour “focused on manufacturing industries, and they later moved to general service industries” (Cooper et al, 2005). In the 1970s, scholars began creating purchase models in the area of tourism. These models presented linear representations of decision-making processes.

It was Moutinho who developed a tourist behaviour model that was different from the rest with two scopes (Moutinho, 1987). First, the model provided for three distinct stages in the consumer decision-making process. These were “pre-decision stage and decision process, post-purchase evaluation, and future decision-making” (Moutinho, 1987).

The model also provided opportunities for feedback mechanism. Second, the model recognised three behavioural aspects in making purchase decisions, such as motivation, cognition, and learning.

The Consumer Information Processing Model: Source: Adopted from Kotler (1997)

Post-purchase Evaluation

Post-purchase evaluation occurs as a result of purchase decision. In this context, the consumer considers the level of purchase involvement. As we have identified above, purchases in the area of hospitality are high levels involvement.

In other words, the level of concern for the purchase is high in the hospitality industry because such decisions are not habitual purchases. The process is a continuum where the flow is from low to high level (Solomon, 2006).

High level of involvement during purchase decision-making process will result into an extensive post-purchase evaluation. Consumers usually question if their decisions to make purchases were the best among other alternatives. This is what we call post-purchase cognitive dissonance.

Elaborate Post-purchase Evaluation: Source: Adopted from Hawkins, Best, and Coney (1983)

Consumers are likely to experience such dissonance if the purchase is irrevocable, involves a high level of commitment, individual factors, selection among alternatives, and the importance of the decision.

Post-purchase experience of dissonance makes the consumer feel uncomfortable. Consequently, they resort to a number of ways to reduce such feelings. These may include preferences for the choice, disregard other alternatives, avoid negative comments about the choice, and reduce the importance of purchase decision.

Consumers who fail to reduce the level of dissonance may experience dissatisfaction with their choices. In this process, the consumer is likely to identify new problems and engage in the process of satisfying the need created due to dissatisfaction by the initial purchase. Consumers will use their experiences and negative feeling like part of the new information in making the decision for the next purchase.

Analysis of the purchase decision models

There are inherent weaknesses that exist in consumer decision-making process models. These models do not explicitly show how consumers undergo complex processes when making decisions of purchasing services in the hospitality industry. These models cannot serve marketers when designing their marketing strategies.

Most critics argue that such models do not rely on any empirical research; thus, may not present reality of how consumers make their purchase decisions. In addition, most of these models are out-of-date in the postmodern hospitality industry, which is ever dynamic as consumers’ preferences are not static.

For instance, the tourism and hospitality industry has experienced changes with regard to the rapid changes in the Internet as a means of booking and purchasing hospitality packages and airline tickets, explosion of no-frills budget airlines, the development of all-encompassing holiday destinations, evolution of direct marketing, and changes in the buying behaviours of tourists that involve last-minute and spontaneous purchase decisions.

Third, a number of models that exist in the field of tourism, hospitality, and event management have their origins in North America, Northern Europe, and Australia. This implies that these models do not cater exhaustively cater for emerging markets in Eastern Europe, South America, Asian and African markets.

These models also tend to classify activities in the hospitality industry as homogeneous. However, consumers of such products are different and unique in their own ways.

Some of these factors that may influence characteristics of visitors may include their travelling patterns i.e. as an individual, family or group, past experiences of such tourists, and personal traits, which may involve planning patterns such as last-minute decisions or considerable amount of time for planning.

A number of models do not account for influences of motivators and determinants that affect consumers during decision-making processes. Some factors that influence consumers’ decision-making processes may dominate other factors and account for the entire decision-making process. However, such factors mainly depend on individuals’ preferences such as hobbies, means of travelling, or preferences for leisure activities, among others.

Other models take rational approaches to decision-making processes in purchases, which is not always the case. The ability to make rational decisions in purchasing among visitors depends on the availability of information.

In most cases, tourists may have access to imperfect information that does not give true accounts of their alternatives. In addition, rationality of the purchase decision-making process also depends on an individual’s factors such as personal opinions and prejudice.

These models assume that consumers’ activities and purchase patterns are constant. They fail to account for emerging trends such as conference tourism, holiday destinations, holiday patterns, effects of globalisation and instant decision-making process among some visitors. Such factors influence the nature of the decision and purchase patterns among consumers.

Postmodern consumers of hospitality industry

Studies show that purchases and consumption in the hospitality industry have become fragmented. The perceived social roles have experienced “breakdown and left majority to adopt any identity they want in a postmodern society” (Thomas, 1997).

In the field of hospitality, the postmodern consumption rotates around “changes in consumer cultures of the late capitalism and the emergence of communication technology” (Brown, 1995). These changes have affected marketing trends in hospitality services (Williams, 2002). Thomas notes postmodernism has significantly influenced marketing.

Thus, he elaborates “Marketing, real-time, real-world marketing is thoroughly postmodern because postmodern marketing openly challenges some of the major axioms of the conventional wisdom as reflected in the standard marketing textbooks” (Thomas, 1997).

Thomas lists axioms that relate to postmodern as “consumer needs, consumer sovereignty, behavioural consistency, customer orientation perceived value, product image, buyer and seller separation, individual and organisation distinction, product and process separation, and consumption and production division” (Thomas, 1997).

We can relate these elements to consumption in the hospitality industry and establish consumerism in postmodern.

According to postmodernism, there is no single privileged form of knowledge, i.e. no theories are superior or inferior to others. Thus, it is no longer possible to believe in a generalisation or meta-discourse. A better understanding of postmodernism should entail sensitivity to differences, fragmented individuality, embrace uncertainty, and discourage the use of consensus to suppress heterogeneity.

In the field of hospitality consumption, we must embrace parallel and emerging trends in the social world. This refers to both self and other spheres of life. Postmodernism recognises that there is a lack of unity, lack of unifying central ideas, order, and lack of coherence.

Lack of certainty applies to an individual as well as the whole system. Therefore, the fragmented nature of consumer decision-making process models results from the fact that postmodernism does not recognise coherent and unified approach to issues as there is also general lack of certainty.

There is also breakdown in the system that leads to distinctions and differences. In turn, we have fragmentation in processes that replace unity or totality. Changes in society will allow for conditions of postmodernism characterised by hyperreality, ambiguity and reproduction of features (Gabriel and Lang, 1995).

Thus, postmodernism does not support any suggestions to replace or impose order to the existing chaotic and fragmented reality. Postmodernism puts it that we should embrace the “limitations of knowledge, question the value of generalisations and accept the impossibility of universal truths” (Thomas, 1997).

Fragmentation also emerges due to a low level of commitment to any one brand. What exists is only a momentary attachment, brand repositioning, and regeneration.

Thus, if we apply the principle of none is superior or inferior to another, then marketing becomes only sensible when it recognises language, symbols and elements of communication that imply and signify essential images in marketing. In the hospitality, the breakdown in the system affects marketing in the hospitality industry, which relates to the universal principle of marketing (Williams, 2002).

Postmodernism tends to question ideas behind generalisations and concepts in overarching theories as it sees them as limited in scopes. Thus, it posits that marketing approaches tend to impose order on the chaotic and fragmented statuses of the modern hospitality industry.

Postmodernism argues that there that the knowledge that exists has limitations about the nature of fragmentation. There is little empirical evidence to support generalisations regarding consumers’ consumption and behaviour patterns.

In addition, consumers’ consumption trends are not orderly and unpredictable. Consumers act on their wishes, ignore the set standards, and fail to maintain systems that may guide their activities (Brown, 1995). Thus, consumers are unreliable and changeable. Dynamic characteristics of modern consumers in the hospitality industry present difficulties in predicting buying behaviours and decision-making processes.

Conclusions

This research has looked at the purchase and post-purchase models in consumption of hospitality services. Academicians and market theorists have made their inputs in order to provide theoretical account of the processes.

However, these models offered by theorists have inherent weaknesses both in describing and explaining how consumers make their purchase decisions. Some of these weaknesses result from elaborate decision-making patterns involved in choosing a holiday destination and subsequent activities.

The consumer decision-making process in purchasing hospitality services is a complex affair. It depends on a number of factors that originate from an individual and other external factors.

However, the models present linear processes that do not account for the complex nature and a high level of decision-making process consumers undergo when choosing a holiday destination. Despite these theories and models, understanding consumer behaviour in consumption of hospitality services remains complex.

The post-purchase evaluation occurs as a result of the decision to purchase. It is also a high-level involvement process due to the nature of the decision and purchase involved. Consumers will experience post-purchase cognitive dissonance due to their purchases. However, in most cases, they tend to find ways of reducing negative feeling about their purchases.

With reference to postmodernism, consumption of hospitality services remain unpredictable, fragmented and not attached to reality. Postmodernism believes that consumers of today live in a world of doubt, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Thus, applying a model to explain their decision-making processes involving a purchase remains difficult to limitation of knowledge.

To this end, we cannot apply generalisations to account for behaviours of consumers in the hospitality industry. Still, marketing remains a complex process as predicting purchasing patterns and consumptions among customers are also difficult.

Most consumers will base their purchase decisions on their wishes, make last-minute decisions, and create new trends in demand for services and products. Such are the difficulties that make these theories fragmented and all-encompassing.

Reference List

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