Ana M. Gonzalez on the Construct “Lifestyle”

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In their study “The Construct ‘Lifestyle’ in Market Segmentation”, Ana M. González and Laurentino Bello had attempted to construct a theoretical framework for defining the mechanics of how purchasing attitudes of Spanish tourist-consumers are being formed. The methodology used in the study (presenting 400 survey participants with questionnaires, in order to define how their lifestyle affects their purchasing choices, while on vacation), was meant to substantiate study’s conceptual validity. The data, obtained during the course of survey, allowed authors to come up with a thesis that tourist-consumers can be divided in five categories, characterized by its members’ lifestyle distinctiveness, which according to González and Bello, should be taken into consideration by representatives of tourist industry, in order to increase this industry’s commercial efficiency. These categories authors define as consisting of people that can be generally described as: 1) Home-loving, 2) Idealistic, 3) Autonomous, 4) Hedonistic and 5) Conservative. Study implies that the reason why representatives of each segment indulge in highly distinctive consumerist behavior is because their existential mode prompts them to act that way.

Despite study’s pseudo-scientific soundness, the closer analysis of conclusions, contained in it, reveals the fact that authors had proven themselves quite incapable of understanding what causes people to adopt different lifestyles, in the first place (to say the least how these lifestyles affect tourists’ purchasing behavior). And the reason for this is simple – González and Bello have chosen to address the subject of their research from strictly environmentalist perspective. That is, “The Construct ‘Lifestyle’ in Market Segmentation” implies the absence of even a remote possibility for people’s lifestyle to be affected by particularities of their biological makeup. This is the reason why, despite having applied a great amount of effort, while conducting an empirical research on what represents independent and dependent variables, within a context of tourists making purchasing choices, authors had failed to mention such people’s important existential characteristic as their ethnic affiliation, which appears being particularly odd, given the fact that Spain takes pride in being multicultural country. Had González and Bello worked in tourist industry for some time, they would know that it is namely vacationing tourists’ ethnicity and cultural affiliation, which defines their purchasing choices more then anything else does. This is why the members of resorts’ staff are not being overly thrilled, while dealing with naturalized Spanish citizens of East European descend, for example – these people never give away any tips, regardless of their social and marital status.¹

In order to provide their work with academic soundness, authors continuously utilize mathematic formulas and equations, as instruments for figuring out tourists’ tendency to indulge in different forms of consumerist behavior: “The result obtained is a value for Bartlett’s chi-squared statistic of 2,840.43 with 2,418 degrees of freedom” (González & Bello, 2002), without realizing that such notion as freedom simply cannot be measured mathematically, due to its purely metaphysical essence. This is why the initial part of a study, where authors describe methodological apparatus, which was be utilized during the course of conducting field surveys, appears to be absolutely unrelated to study’s actual conclusions – after all, it does not take a professor to understand that the behavior of vacationing couples (Home-loving) significantly differs from the behavior of vacationing bachelors and bachelorettes (Autonomous). In other words, the empirical part of González and Bello’s study is best described as the waste of time and money, simply because authors’ extensive utilization of functional equations (“F-test with (g–1, n–g) degrees of freedom where n = sample size and g = number of groups”) had brought them to same set of conclusions, as it would have been the case had González and Bello relied on their sense of common logic, while researching the subject matter. Moreover, it never occurred to the authors that behavioral traits that are being strictly assigned to representatives of five categories of tourists, maybe very well be discussed outside these people’s lifestyle affiliation. For example, there is absolutely no rational reason to think that Hedonists, which are being referred to as such who “like success and try to realize themselves personally”, are incapable of manifesting psychological traits of Conservatives “a home-loving segment, members of which are focused on the wellbeing of their family and coping with day-to-day life”, which actually points at theoretical falseness of study’s conceptual premises.

In its turn, this explains study’s overall inconclusiveness, despite its pseudo-scientific pretense: “The characteristics of each (segment) are much more extensive than the label defining them. It is quite likely that these labels and characteristics would not correspond precisely to those to be found in other countries” (González & Bello, 2002). Thus, both authors subtly admit their study being deprived of much of its practical worth, because it is namely international travelers which account for the bulk of income, generated by Spanish tourist industry annually, just as it is the case with long-established tourist industries, throughout the world. Apparently, despite their extensive academic credits, González and Bello have proven themselves incapable of understanding a very simple thing – the objective value of every scientific study directly corresponds to universality of such study’s conclusions. The reason why Isaac Newton continues to be referred as brilliant physicist is because his Law of Gravitation had never lost its actuality. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about González and Bello’s theory as to how people’s lifestyle affects market segmentation in tourist industry, partially due to both authors’ inability to refer to the notion of “lifestyle” as neo-Liberal mental construction, rather then objective socio-behavioral phenomenon.

As the realities of multicultural living in Spain indicate, even people that cannot possibly afford being associated with a distinctive lifestyle, because of their perceptional primitiveness (immigrants from Third World), contribute enormously to the overall well-being of Spain’s economy and to Spanish tourist industry, in particular, even though they also contribute to Spain’s beaches being littered with garbage.² Yet, in their study González and Bello never bothered to mention the effect of this growing segment within Spain’s population on country’s tourist ranking. Katya Adler’s article “Spain Stands by Immigrant Amnesty” can serve as another proof as to invalidity of González and Bello’s theory that it is only socio-environmental factors that account for people’s vacationing behavior, as it provides us with the insight onto the fact that demographic fabric of Spanish society undergoes a rapid transformation, as we speak: “Spain is processing work papers for about 700,000 illegal immigrants already living in the country after holding a three-month amnesty” (Adler, 2005). In its turn, this substantially undermines the validity of both authors’ suggestion that Spaniards can be generally divided along the lines of purely euro-centric concept of a “lifestyle”, simply because the “lifestyle” of “ethnically unique” Spaniards accounts for only two basic pursuits: making babies and bringing as many of their relatives to Spain as they can, while relying on Spain’s system of social assistance to make living.

Thus, we can conclude that, even though González and Bello’s study does contain a few valid suggestions as to how people’s lifestyle defines their purchasing choices, while on vacation, it would be wrong to think of it as such that represents an objective scientific value, because while conducting their research, authors appear to have been primarily concerned with gaining additional academic credits, rather then with benefiting the representatives of Spain’s tourist industry in any practical way.

Bibliography

Adler, K 2005. Spain Stands by Immigrant Amnesty. BBC News, Web.
Argandoña, A 1999. Business Ethics in Spain. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 155-173.
Cater, E 1995. Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism. The Geographical Journal, vol. 161, no. 1, pp. 21-28.
González, A & Bello L 2002. The Construct ‘Lifestyle’ in Market Segmentation: The Behavior of Tourist Consumers. European Journal of Marketing, vol. 36, no. 1-2, pp. 51-85(35).

Footnotes

Argandoña, A 1999. Business Ethics in Spain. Journal of Business Ethics.
Cater, E 1995. Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism. The Geographical Journal.

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Ana M. Gonzalez on the Construct “Lifestyle”

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