Adding psychological value to visitor attractions.

What do park managers need to know about visitors to develop efficient and successful marketing strategies? Certainly, an understanding of who are --and who are not--patrons in terms of overt characteristics is important. In fact, it is the primary purpose for visitor profile studies. However, seldom do studies of this nature reveal the underlying reasons for the trip and tourists' motives for visiting a particular attraction instead of the competing alternatives.

This article will highlight a methodology designed to better understand what motivates people to visit a particular attraction, what they think about while visiting an attraction, and how they evaluate an attraction as compared to its closest competitors. Such an understanding can assist management in "fine-tuning" its abilities to help visitors reach their goals. It also can help an organization define its image to be projected in promotional campaigns.

Considerable amounts of research over the years have focused on identifying the underlying motives for leisure and travel behavior. The approaches to studying motives can be described as: standard lists of motivations, focus groups, and the laddering technique. Me first two have been applied in a number of settings. However, their limitations have not been well understood.

For example, we supplied a standard list of motivations to a representative sample of visitors to a fine arts museum. To see a specific educational program or exhibit for relaxation and entertainment and to escape from daily routines were the main reasons subjects have given for the visits. Though useful, the responses did not provide insights into the deeper more underlying motivations.

Focus groups, which are another popular means of uncovering consumers' feelings, revolve around finding out in consumers' "own words" their motives and feelings. However, the concept of corollary of individuality asserts that no two people will construct the same exact meaning of an event Kelly 1955). The meaning of an event--as well as words to describe that meaning--have evolved from an individual's unique set of social circumstances. Consequently, each individual can be expected to have slightly different meanings since diversity in social backgrounds and geographic origins is inherent, particularly in a tourism context. Therefore, there is considerable evidence that the constructs which are elicited from subjects individually are more meaningful personally than are constructs derived from group consensus (focus groups) or supplied to them from other sources (standard lists of dimensions).

The laddering technique, as an alternative to standard lists of dimensions and focus groups, refers to in-depth probing of individuals directed at uncovering higher level meanings of patronage behavior. Put simply, the means-end framework suggests that the relevance of any decision is translated in terms of outcomes (consequences) which derive their meaning as to the degree they satisfy the individual's higher values or central goals. Laddering attempts to discover the key descriptors at all levels. This technique can be used to answer the all important "why" questions associated with leisure choice.

A Means-End Framework for Exploring Decision-Making

Tourist activity enables consumers to escape from everyday life. Many choose travel as a means of refreshment and relaxation. The traveler's means to reach these goals are the elements of the trip (i.e., attractions to be visited, places stayed, etc.). Armed with both motives and means, the traveler can begin his or her journey.

The motives of consumers are deeply rooted in their network of expectations, goals, and values. We have employed a means-end chain (Gutman 1983, Van Rekom 1994, Crotts 1994) to conceptualize and measure the connections between an attraction's attributes, visitor consequences, and personal values. Attributes are defined as features or aspects of the attraction's experience or services. Consequences accrue to people from consuming or experiencing these services. They may be desirable or undesirable. The consequences of interest are the desirable outcomes derived from park visitation. Consequences which in themselves have no further consequences can be considered end states. They often are called "values," which are important beliefs people hold about themselves and their feelings concerning others' beliefs about them (Rokeach 1968). It is values that determine the relative desirability of consequences.

This line of research is consistent with several interesting theoretical perspectives about cognitive structures such as Personal Construct Theory (Addams-Webber 1979) and Repertory Grid Theory (Kelly 1955). Essentially, we have used a series of free-response tasks including triad sorts and laddering tasks to elicit from subjects their means-end structures for patronage behavior. The elicitation tasks are designed to help subjects verbalize first the distinctions they use to differentiate between competing attractions and, second, the linkages, if any, among those distinctions and consequences and basic values. Then we apply a set of relatively simple analytic procedures to these sets of individual level responses that combine them into an aggregate or group level cognitive structure.

The following is a detailed description of the means-end approach for identifying underlying motives for visitor patronage. First, subjects need to be recruited randomly from the population of known patrons for the 40-minute interview. Sample sizes need not be large and have ranged in previous investigations from 12 to 40 subjects. Research has shown that new insights seldom are elicited with more than 40 subjects.

Interviewing Procedure

The process begins with a basic repertory grid methodology, called the triad sort task (Kelly 1955). First, subjects are asked to name, for example, two other ecoparks among their choice alternatives. For summary purposes, they can be assigned an A, B or C in which A represents the ecopark under investigation. Then one groups the three parks into three triads and asks "Tell me how ecoparks A and B are alike and different from C?" "How are ecoparks B and C alike and different from A?" And "How are A and C alike and different from B?" This procedure is intended to determine how a person distinguishes ecoparks from one another. For example, a person may say ecoparks A and B have knowledgeable and friendly rangers, while ecopark C does not. Second, to identify the full set of linkages towards the more abstract levels of consequences and values, subjects are asked to rate the concepts they elicited in the triad sort in terms of their importance.

Next, the interviewer may say something like You mentioned that knowledgeable and friendly rangers are important to you. Why is this important? After the subject answers, the interviewer will ask the same basic question again, but this time in terms of the subject's answer. The "why" questions will be repeated until the subject stops. It usually is clear when subjects are finished, because they say something like "just because," "it just is," or they will shrug their shoulders and say "I don't know."

Not every subject's means-end chain can be expected to reach the values level. Some subjects may be able to elaborate their means-end structures more so than others. However, combining all responses into an aggregate provide a representation of the group level motives of park visitors. A value structure map that is intrinsically hierarchical in nature is next mated from the linkages across subject's responses. The map itself represents the aggregate of all the individual linkages. All attributes, consequences, and values are cast as the rows and columns of a square matrix. Me frequency with which each element leads to or implies another element is represented by the cell frequencies of such a matrix. The relationships between the key elements, as summarized by the cell frequencies, serve as the basis for constructing the value structure map.

Figure 1 provides a hierarchical structure for a hypothetical ecopark. One way to examine such a map is to track the paths from the bottom of the map to the top. Note that many of the ladders are interconnected and that lower level attributes and consequences converge into a few higher level values. Therefore, there are alternative ways of moving from the attributes level to the consequence level and then onto the values level. In other words, "many roads lead to Rome."

How To Interpret a Hierarchical Value Map

Recall that each line represents a chain of motivations for visitors. Starting in the bottom left corner. "Miles of Unspoiled Virgin Forests" is an important choice criterion because it means that the visitor encounters a "Peaceful Place". This "Peaceful Place" is important, because it provides an "Escape from the Everyday". "Escape from the Everyday," in turn, serves two purposes (following the lines upward again). It provides "Challenge" and enables the respondents to "Experience the Natural Order of Nature". "Experiencing the Natural Order of Nature," following the line from that box upward, is important for the visitor to "Satisfy Existential Values".

Links Are Clear

In the same way, all chains of motivations are revealed following the lines in the figure upward. You do not have to point to all those motives and choice criteria at once to describe visitors' motivations. The particular advantage of the laddering technique is that it illustrates clearly the links between motives and allows us to summarize visitors' motivations into relatively few terms. Me constructs which are able to fulfill this function mostly are higher in the figure and directly or indirectly linked to nearly all other constructs. At the same time, they generally are easier to implement if they are lower, because then they are more concrete, at least from managements point of view.

With this in mind, the figure shows two very central motives for ecoparks visitation: "Escape from the Everyday" and "Sense of Belonging". All the more concrete details are important in that they serve either of these two strivings directly or indirectly. At the same time, "Escape from the Everyday" and "Sense of Belonging" serve all the higher level goals and values which motivate visitors. What park management has to do in order to provide "Escape from the Everyday" and a "Sense of Belonging" is described in detail, following the lines downward from these two constructs. For instance, visitors may enjoy a "Sense of Belonging" if they are not "Treated as a Number". They may not feel "Treated as a Number" if (following the line downward from there) the park "Rangers are Knowledgeable and Friendly." They may perceive "Rangers are Knowledgeable and Friendly" (following the line further downward from there) if the are available to "Explain How Manatees Live."

The hierarchical value map represents the respondents' thought patterns with respect to their preferences for ecoparks. Managers of ecoparks can compare possible positioning strategies with the contents of the hierarchical value map and see whether the positioning strategy fits in with the respondents' world of thought. A positioning only makes sense if it can be perceived by patrons as serving their own goals better. Each element of the hierarchical value map can be important in two ways. Escape from Everyday Life" in the figure, for instance, leads to both "Challenge" and to "Experience the Natural Order of Nature." The higher the level of a construct the more important it is to the visitor. Me more self-evident it is, the more general it is in the visitor's eyes (Van Rekom, 1994).

Results can be used to define the experience as well as to define the image to be projected through advertising. The most obvious benefit from the process would be in identifying those elements that are unique to certain parks in question and how visitors evaluate them in terms of importance. For example, if specific attributes of your park are unique among your visitors' competing alternatives, it would be useful to know how important these attributes are to them and why. On the other hand, if an attribute is important to visitors but is lacking in the park, you now would know how to budget your limited resources.

Creativity, in combination with laddering research, also can produce useful insights which have not appeared in the research results themselves. An ecopark may have very interesting features that the respondents never thought about but which may very well serve their goals. The idea of an "Escape from the Everyday" may significantly be enhanced if management provides, for instance, paddle boat rentals which allow visitors to explore under-utilized corners of the park by boat. Any new elements which satisfy the visitor motives may offer new opportunities for the park.

Communication Strategy Warranted

However, this does not mean that the new feature automatically will be successful. Management has to make sure that the visitors themselves can see the connection. A well-designed communication strategy based on the visitors' underlying motivation structure (e.g., as shown in Figure 1) may be warranted.

The means-end framework, therefore, provides a means for management to go beyond a focus on park attributes and begin tapping into how parks relate to the personal value system of visitors. The more successful managers are in identifying visitors underlying means-end chains, the more able they are to help visitors reach their goals.

Identifying the means-end chain of visitors also can help management in its image creation process. The real key to understanding image lies in the understanding of the linkages between attributes, consequences, and values that define the perceptual looking glass through which people view the world and subsequently develop preferences for certain types of experiences.