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Segmentation, tourism

Encyclopedia of Tourism
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Segmentation is one of the domains of strategic marketing. Matching a producer’s or service provider’s capabilities with customer needs is greatly facilitated by specialization and selective operation in one or more market segments. Marketing theory suggests that segments be composed of target customers who respond homogeneously to the marketer’s promotional activities (response-based segmentation). Following this guideline requires a validated and segment-specific market response model to predict customer reaction. Where such an advanced predictive instrument is unavailable, marketing managers rely on customers’ past behavior. A segmentation strategy determines the number and size of the segments and the classification criteria used for profiling segment members. Marketing managers evaluate segment attractiveness and decide on which and how many segments should be actually targeted and what promotional budget should be allocated.

Marketers relying on customers’ past behavior may...

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Correspondence to Josef A. Mazanec .

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Mazanec, J.A. (2014). Segmentation, tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_169-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_169-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01669-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Segmentation - Tourism
    Published:
    09 February 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_169-3

  2. Segmentation: Tourism
    Published:
    03 December 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_169-2

  3. Original

    Segmentation, tourism
    Published:
    15 September 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_169-1