Are coach tourists different? A segmentation analysis of North American coach tourists to Ireland

This thesis analyses the travel and psychographic behaviours of the North American coach tourist visiting Ireland. There were 300,000 overseas coach tourists to Ireland in 2010 contributing an estimated €180 million to the Irish economy. 115,000 came from North America averaging a length of stay of 9 nights. The thesis’s segmentation analysis is based on a unique survey of 741 North American coach tourists, with 486 responses useable for analysis. Segmentation analysis combines factor analysis to reduce the data and cluster analysis to group similar responses. These techniques, although popular within tourism literature, have never been used to analyse an inbound tourist market to Ireland, so this research fills a gap in Irish segmentation research. This research illustrates the usefulness of multivariate techniques in differentiating different potential markets in the tourism sector by providing an in-depth understanding of the type of North American coach tourist visiting Ireland. Four unique segments were identified: the Active Indulgers, the Family Free Independents, the Family Focused Culturists, and the Traditionalists. The four segments differ across eight key variables: socio-demographics, trip characteristics, activities pursued while on holiday, travel motivations, travel constraints, sources of holiday information, lifestyle characteristics of respondents, and the character types of respondents. The segments combine tourist characteristics in new ways not previously seen in the literature. This research therefore shows the importance of market segmentation, its extensive use in developing a better understanding of tourist characteristics and creating marketing strategies, and its under-use within Irish studies. The segments derived show that within the North American coach tour market there are distinct sub sectors, which could be profitably exploited. North American coach tourists are not simply a random sample of the larger tourist market, but have unique characteristics, and so the thesis recommends diverse coach tour packages that could be offered to improve Ireland’s competitiveness in this market.