Tourist Typology

Before knowing about the typology of tourist we have to be known about the word tourist and its meaning:

Define Tourist:

Tourist is a person who travels from one place to another place or from one country to another country or from one city to another city outside of their usual daily living environment where they live and work for various objectives like pleasure, fun, entertainment, relaxation, enjoyment etc. for more than 24 hours without exceeding one year and without involving in any learning activities.

Tourist typology:

1. Drifter tourist:-A person who is continually moving from place to place, without any fixed home or job is known as drifter tourist. Followings are some of the characteristics of drifter tourist:-

• Adventurous
• Avoid other tourists
• Makes no use of tourist services
• Long term stay
• Immerse completely in the local society
• Also called a budget tourist
• They are not concerned about safety and comfort.

2. Independent tourist:- These types of tourist immerse themselves locally but rely on modern amenities. They tend to be socially and interacting with local people and love to seek adventure and thrills. They are also called “backpacker” guided by “lonely planet”. A traveling which you organize things yourself, rather than using accompany who will arrange flights, hotels etc. are known as independent tour and those who travels independently are known as independent tourists. For example: If you are an independent traveller or a person who wants to create own destination plans and prefer not to be with a group and would like to avoid the trouble of not only researching and planning your trip but also making the necessary reservations, then u make a plan of your own and ready to get out of your usual environment for travelling to another country, cities, region etc. with our own plan then you are an independent tourist.

3. Individual mass tourist:-It was services of the tourist industry and seeks security, comfort, and stay. They interact very little with local people. If a person individually organizes their tour, vacation, refreshments or holiday to a place of mass demand e.g. UK, France, and Germany etc., then it is known as an individual mass tourist where a person is going to travel in a mass destination and mass part or mass tour since it is a separate individually planned and organized and all the activities of a tour they may be involving in a separately or an individually rather than mass company or charter such as flight center, group climb to the top of the Eiffel tower etc. hence it is an individually organized trip. These types of tourist are very much similar to the organized mass tourist whereas the tour is not fixed. These types of tourist have certain control over their time and the tour itinerary but still they have to concerned with travel agencies because all the major arrangements are still made through travel agencies.

4. Organized mass tourist:-It is highly dependent on tourism services which are fully organized. It has no limited conducts with the local population, which travels in a group. It is a western style accommodation. These types of tourist have least adventurous on their tours/trip because they spend most of their time in their comforts, relaxation, and luxuries throughout their trip. For this types of tour itinerary or the plan for the tour is decided in advance and all the attractions for them are guided and well fixed. In this type of tour/trip tourist has no decision on the plan of their trip as the itinerary for the trip are already prepared and decided.

5. Recreational:- Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. It is demanded when people realize the necessity for the relaxation, holidays, entertainments etc. When people works hard gets busy in their working life and gets stress and tiredness because o their work and personal problem, they feel the lack of enjoyment in their life and starts desiring for a leisure where they can go on holidays or do some enjoyable things and that is when they plan to travel. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreationalactivities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun”.

6. Diversionary:- These types of tourist seek to escape or diversion from their normal running lifestyle for traveling to another place outside of their usual environment with an objective of having fun, relaxation, pleasure and entertainment. Diversion is an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates. If the same things repeat daily then it’s obvious to get bored so it is normal to escape your time from your own busy schedule life for traveling/visiting at least have some fun and excitements in your boring life, relaxation, and pleasure in your stressful life. It’s always better to divert your stressful life towards some relaxation and pleasure.

7. Experiential:- These types of tourist travel for gathering and collecting experiences. Experientially is all about valuing the experiences you actually have over what you’re told you should being doing by someone else whereas life is all about living, collecting and gathering memories. In these types of tour/trip, peoples who are traveling are mostly interested in experiencing new and exciting hands-on experiences things rather than having a relaxed, pleasured and luxuries things. It encourages visitors to engage the senses with memorable, hands-on experiences.

8. Existential:-The word existence means something existing or something surviving. And here, in this case, it means the traveler/tourist who are still existing or surviving, who still are willing to travel and still are traveling. The number of the existing tourist increases only when people will continuous to travel/visit and always have the willingness, desire and ability to travel/visit, if not then the number of the existential tourist will decrease which will not be a profitable and positive thing on the development of tourism .Therefore, the number of existential tourist plays a vital role in the development of the tourism.

References:

1. A.K.Bhatia. Tourism development Principles and Practices. New Delhi: Sterling Publisher Pvt.Ltd, 2009.
2. Pariyar, P. 2011. A DECADE OF TOURIST ARRIVAL IN NEPAL : A Project Work Report , BBS final year, Finance group (Tourism) Faculty of Management , Public Youth Campus, Dhobichaur, Kathmandu, Nepal
3. Limbu, B. "Tourism." Tourism. 20 12 2010.
4. Runckel, Charles. www.Business-in-Asia.com. 2007. <http://www.business-in-asia.com/asia/medical_tourism.html>.
5. Singh, Gurjit. Tourism and amp; its impacts. n.d.