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Pre-1990 mass tourists were homogeneous and predictable. They followed the same line along the whole vacation. They felt secure by travelling in numbers, and they took vacations where everything was prepaid and prearranged. Present-day tourists are different. They are spontaneous and unpredictable. They do not follow the same predictable lines either in travel or stay. They purchase different services in different price categories during the same trip. Current tourists want to be different from the crowd. They want to be individual and in control and make decisions for themselves.

Compared to previous generations, present tourists are used to travel and they are better educated and informed about the destinations they visit. Their attitudes are also different from the mass tourists. Unlike previous generations of tourists, they are concerned about the environment and cultures of the host countries they visit and take an interest in the different ways of life. Modern travellers are much more individual, wealthy, knowledgeable, experienced, independent and flexible, and more destination-focused than the mass tourist (Figure 8).

FIGURE 8 Old and New Tourists

Old Tourist	New Tourists
InexperiencedHomogeneousPredictableDestination unimportantGet sunburntEscape	ExperiencedHybridUnpredictableDestination importantActiveExtension of life

Source: Based on Poon. Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies, 144.

Modern tourists make demands on all parts of their trip, especially experiences at the place of destination. These different demands imply that the tourist industry must market its products to individual travellers and not to groups or masses. In many ways, the production of tourist services is still based on economies of scale in the background of the supplying organizations, but their products have to be differentiated and multiplied instead of just one mass product, so-called ‘dynamic packaging’. Customization of products enables tourist companies to provide flexible travel and other tourist services that meet the demands of modern consumers, including, for example, cruise lines with many different activities and vacations addressing different needs such as wild life, health, culture, shopping, bathing, etc. Fulfilling these new consumer demands require demand driven organizations and management which are able to focus on customers and able to innovate and individualize products. In the globalized and liberalized world of modern technologies, tourists can go almost anywhere and pick whatever companies they want to meet their demands when visiting a certain destination. Many companies have rushed to supply similar products to modern travellers, causing prices to go down, creating new routes, destinations, services and firms. The dynamics of tourism opens for consolidation on a global, regional and national level, but also for many innovative new companies that see new opportunities in the changing patterns of supply and demand.

The changing behavior of tourists can be seen everywhere in developed countries, in North America, Western Europe, East Asia and Oceania, including the rising middle classes of emerging societies. Everywhere tourists want experiences that add quality to their lives. That is also why they travel more often and although they are different and individual, you can identify certain common characteristics. In many ways, every generation seems to act in rather similar ways, and this allows the tourism industry to segment travelers according to age.¹²

Many present-day middle aged people and older people are well off, well educated, live longer and travel more than previous generations, and they also demand high quality travel experiences. These ‘junior mates’ or ‘baby boomers’ are the first post-war generation that qualifies for the designation ‘new’ tourists. They travel often and demand all kinds of cultural and learning activities, now that they no longer have children at home. They focus on life quality, and often organize their trip themselves. The next generation, born in the 1960s and 1970s, often consists of families with children living at home. They demand vacations suitable for both grown-ups and children. The generation of the 1980s and decades to come is so to speak born into a life based on individualism, welfare and new technologies. They want personal experiences and are frequent users of modern interactive and mobile technologies.

Across generations people want more quality from tourism experiences, including culture, nature, togetherness, health and some comfort. The spectrum of demands is wide, however, from the very active and participation vacations at the one end to visits to family and friends and shopping at the other end. People take short trips or long trips to one or more destinations and generally speaking, they want a more holistic experience.

In tourism, the growing number of middle-aged and old people has become increasingly important to the industry. They have got the money and inclination to travel. The age group between 25 and 44 years is still the largest traveling group of tourists in the world, but the age group between 45 and 64 is about to take that position, followed by the older people. Furthermore, the increasing share of older tourists will raise the demand for out-of-season travel. The number of handicapped travelers will increase, too, for the simple reason that many old people are handicapped. In Western Europe and the United States, probably a quarter of the elders is handicapped.¹³

Whereas the share of middle aged and older tourists is rising, the share of holiday travelers and business travelers for decades has been roughly the same, namely 80 and 20 percent respectively. In relative economic terms, the economic importance of business travelers is much larger, however, because on average each business traveler spends twice as much money as a holiday traveler.

Looking at people’s motive for traveling compared to pre-1990, travel patterns remain unchanged to a certain degree. Even though an increasing share of tourists travel to experience culture, sports and other such activities, the majority of West Europeans still travel in the summer time to the coast or warmer climates, at least for longer vacations. Many go for skiing during the winter vacation, too. City tourism is the second important goal for traveling. Out-of-season, tourist preferences are almost equally divided between nature, city and mountains. When including all short term travel, city traveling takes the leading place, however.¹⁴ This is clearly seen in the USA, where statistics on tourist travel and behavior is more detailed than in Europe. In the United States, shopping is the most important reason for traveling, followed by visits to family and friends.¹⁵ Many other and smaller tourism segments include, for instance, backpacking, hiking, biking, rural, adventure, eco, sex, and pilgrimage tourism.

Although tourists to some degree show common behavior according to age and motive, the increasing diversification of travel patterns makes it more and more difficult to categorize the nature of people’s vacations. How should we define a vacation, starting off with a cultural city tour and ending up at the beach or playing golf? And what about eco-tourism? Is eco-tourism when you from your hotel watch animals that cannot be reached by car, or when you leave your car to watch them or go for a bicycle tour? Is the growing interest in cultural city tours perhaps just a consequence of rising wealth or have people really become more interested in culture? Generally speaking, vacations to a much greater degree than previously combine a mixture of motives, while many people at the same time organize their own travel, taking advantage of the Internet. Furthermore, in contrast to the the tourism industry, tourists look at their vacation activities as a whole, whereas the tourism industry is divided into several separately specialized industries. No current industry or company comprises all the activities along the travel value chain of tourism. As we shall see, leading tourist corporations are seeking to cover more and more parts of the tourism value chain, however. Present-day tourism is certainly a buyer’s market.

Tourists choose their destination before giving thought to the services they want. A destination is a geographical area and has a content that meets the demands of a certain group of tourists. Destinations are the stages where tourists realize their dreams. Whereas tourists at the destination demand services as a whole, the service providers are divided into several separate industries and companies, providing accommodation food and beverage, attractions, entertainment, transportation, etc. The destination seldom involves only one company. The destination encompasses a combination of companies organized around attractions that add extra value to these companies and as a whole attract customers to the area. From the point of view of the customer or tourist, there is rivalry between destinations and not between companies with regard to a certain destination. But once the tourist has arrived at a destination, the local companies compete to attract him. That is why local companies and authorities cooperate in marketing their destination to national and international customers and the arrival of the Internet has truly made that possible.

The tourism industry is not only driven by new customers, new ways of organization and better means of transportation. Increasingly, the new technologies of IT, the Internet and mobile phones have caused changes on the demand side as well as on the supply side. Within tourist companies and between these companies an integrated system of information and communication has been established. By way of the Internet, all tourist products have been made available to consumers, too. They are now visible and comparable, which has created a transparent market. At the same time, the increasing outsourcing and division of labor has made all parties of the tourist industry establish consumer sales channels of their own. By way of the Internet, consumers are now able to book and buy flights directly from airlines, hotel rooms at hotels, rental cars at rental companies and insurance at insurance companies. And if consumers wish, they may also use a travel agency to organize all these activities. Via the Internet, it is possible sometimes to make arrangements with attraction providers also. The different parts of the tourist industry have reacted to the rise of the buyer’s market by extending their activities to include links to the whole tourist value chain. For example, airlines and ferries offer whole packages of travel and accommodation for summer and winter holidays. In other cases, operators containing cruise lines, amusement parks or other resorts seek to cover a whole vacation experience. All kinds of tourism services can be provided and obtained by way of the Internet and this has even paved the way for exclusive Internet tourist companies.

In all the current production and distribution of tourist services, information processing has become a clue to value creation in the tourism industry. Airlines, hotels, tour operators, travel agencies and destination companies all extend their activities and sales channels towards customers. In step with the redefinition and blurring of business borders, it is becoming still more important what activities you control in the tourism value chain and this has led to increased competition and remodeling of the tourism industry.