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Going on vacation: Benefits sought from pleasure travel

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by Susan Crompton with Leslie-Anne Keown

Why do Canadians travel for pleasure?
What you should know about this study
Family-and-friends and rest-and-relaxation: For some it’s a pair, for others it’s a trade-off
Children influence family-and-friends and work status affects R&R
The benefits people want dictate the qualities they look for in a destination
Learning-and-discovery: It’s all about adventure
Summary

For centuries, travel for pleasure was a wealthy person’s privilege. But beginning in the 20th century, as average incomes rose and as cars and planes made distances shrink, the vacation or pleasure trip became attainable for people from almost all walks of life.1

With over three in four Canadian adults taking even a brief holiday,2 pleasure travel has become a large and important industry. Canadians spend tens of billions of dollars within Canada itself and billions more in other countries.3 This spending generates government revenues that are also in the billions, primarily from sales, employment and business taxes.4 

In the last year or so, though, the tourism industry has faltered and conditions are not expected to improve in 2009.5 A poll of Canadian consumer spending intentions, conducted in December 2008, identified vacation spending as the second most common cost-cutting measure in 2009.6 Meanwhile, the term “stay-cation” was coined to describe the increasing tendency of people to take their vacations at home.7

Nevertheless, it’s not certain that these intentions will be acted upon. Several decades of tourism research generally conclude that the benefits people expect to derive from their travel experience are better predictors of their travel behaviour than their income or other socio-demographic characteristics.8,9 People travel for pleasure because they want to escape the everyday, to feel rejuvenated, to acquire status and prestige, to socialize, to learn something, or just to enjoy the scenery.10  And these benefits of pleasure can be much more powerful motivators to people than affordability alone.

While these benefits have been identified in earlier studies, this article adds to the discussion by quantifying the value of these benefits. By measuring their magnitude on an eight-point index, we can compare the value of a given benefit to different kinds of travellers; we can also compare the value of one benefit relative to another. In addition, since many people take vacation or pleasure trips for multiple reasons, we are able to identify correlated travel benefits and discuss them as pairs, rather than as separate items. Ultimately, we hope that these findings will be useful to the Canadian tourism industry.

Using data from the 2006 Travel and Activity Motivation Survey, this article examines the three most popular benefits of vacation or pleasure travel: rest and relaxation (R&R index); nurturing family and friendship ties (family-and-friends index); and learning and discovery (discovery index). The study population is restricted to travellers aged 25 and over who live in a family with children under 18, in a couple, or on their own. (See “What you should know about this study” for concepts and definitions.)

Why do Canadians travel for pleasure?

Canadian travellers look for three principal types of benefits when they go on a vacation or pleasure trip. The first benefit is simply rest-and-relaxation (R&R index): the traveller’s main objective is to get a break from their daily environment, to relax and relieve stress, and to have no fixed schedule. On an index of 0 to 8, where 6.0 or over is defined as “highly important,” the overall average score on the benefits index for rest-and-relaxation is 6.2. R&R has the highest average score of all three benefits because almost two-thirds of adult travellers said that, for them, this was a highly important benefit of a pleasure trip (Chart 1).

Chart 1 Rest-and-relaxation is the most popular benefit of vacation or pleasure travel

Chart 1
Rest-and-relaxation is the most popular benefit of vacation or pleasure travel

The second type of benefit involves nurturing family and friendship ties (family-and-friends index). In this case, a key goal of the trip is to keep family ties alive, to enrich the traveller’s relationship with their spouse and children, to create lasting memories, and to renew personal connections with people other than family. The overall average score on the index for family-and-friends is 5.2 out of 8.0 points, with almost half (48%) of adult travellers reporting that this is a highly important benefit of pleasure travel.

The third type of travel benefit is learning-and-discovery (discovery index). Travellers look forward to seeing or doing something new and different, learning about history or other cultures and places, enriching their perspective on life, and stimulating their intellect. This benefit is highly important to just over one-quarter of travellers, making its overall average score of 4.4 fairly low compared to the other two benefits indices.

It is certainly possible to seek more than one benefit from the same pleasure or vacation trip, and undoubtedly many travellers have multiple purposes.11 There is a mild-to-moderate positive correlation between the benefits indices of family-and-friendship ties and rest-and-relaxation; that is, as the importance of family-and-friends increases, so does the importance of R&R. There is also a positive link between family and friendship ties and learning-and-discovery, but no association between discovery and R&R (Chart 2). 

Chart 2 There is a mild-to-moderate positive correlation between family-and-friendship ties and other travel benefits

Chart 2
There is a mild-to-moderate positive correlation between family-and-friendship ties and other travel benefits

We will follow up on these correlations and discuss family-and-friends and R&R together as a pair of travel benefits. We will then examine adults who describe learning-and-discovery as a key benefit of their vacation or pleasure travel plans.

What you should know about this study

Data in this study were drawn from the 2006 Travel Activities and Motivation Survey (TAMS). TAMS was conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of the Canadian Tourism Commission, three federal agencies and nine provincial and territorial agencies and departments responsible for tourism. Travellers were defined as persons answering that they had taken an out-of-town trip of one or more nights in the two-year period preceding the survey.

This article is based on a sample of about 15,500 respondents to TAMS representing over 11.3 million Canadian travellers aged 25 and over. This study population comprises travellers who live in a family with children under 18, live with a spouse or partner only, or live alone. Travellers are restricted to adults aged 25 and over since they are more likely than younger adults to be making the key decisions about pleasure travel such as where to go and what to spend. About 3,000 respondents, representing just over 3.6 million travellers, who were living with children aged 18 and over, or with anyone outside the immediate nuclear family (e.g. grandparents, in-laws, or other relatives) are also excluded because it is impossible to reasonably assume that these family members travel together, making the effect of family structure on travel motivations and behaviour difficult to interpret.

Definitions
Travellers: persons aged 25 and older who had taken an out-of-town vacation or pleasure trip of one or more nights in the past two years.
Family structure: the study population comprises travellers living in four basic family types. Living with a spouse/partner and child (or children) under age 18 living at home. Also referred to as husband-wife family with children.  
Living with a child (or children) under age 18 living at home. Also referred to as a lone-parent family.  
Living in a couple, living with a spouse or partner only.  
Living alone. Referred to as solo.
Preliminary analysis showed that age is a primary factor dictating the likelihood of travelling for pleasure, so we separated the solo and couple family types into two age groups—25 to 54 years, and 55 years and older. Travellers with children are not sub-divided by age because over 97% of them were between 25 and 54 years old.

Travel benefits
Respondents were asked about 15 specific benefits of travel, which they were asked to rate as 0 “of no importance,” 1 “somewhat important” or 2 “highly important.” Following the procedure established in the travel literature,1,2,3 we conducted a factor analysis to identify those specific benefits that were most closely related and could be grouped together into general themes. Based on the results, we were able to collapse 11 of the 15 questions into the three travel benefits indices described below:4
Rest-and-relaxation (R&R): get a break from your day-to-day environment; relax and relieve stress; have a life with no fixed schedule (to do what I want, when I want).
Family-and-friendship ties (Family-and-friends): to keep family ties alive; to enrich your relationships with your spouse, partner and/or children; to create lasting memories; to renew personal connections with people other than family.
Learning-and-discovery (Discovery): to see or do something new and different; to gain knowledge of history, other cultures or other places; to enrich your perspective on life; to stimulate your mind or be intellectually challenged.

The model
We used linear regression models with the benefit index as the dependent variable. Coefficients were estimated through a weighted regression that used the TAMS survey weights, with variance estimation done through survey bootstrapping. Coefficients are unstandardized; statistical significance was calculated at p < 0.01 (99% confidence). Variables in the models include travellers’ socio-demographic and economic characteristics, as well as a set of destination determinants. See Table 1 for a complete list of variables in the models.

For readers wanting a practical application of the model results, the coefficients may be interpreted in an additive fashion as shown in the following example. Begin with the base score for the travel index and then add the required variables. Thus, we can add up: base score for family-and-friends index (3.36) for a woman (0.19) with spouse and children under 18 (1.05) and household income of $60,000 to $99,999 (-0.03) having high school education (0.00) and a full-time paid job (-0.11), who also scores over 6.0 on the rest-and-relaxation index (0.61) and also rates as highly important destination attributes that there are lots of activities for the kids (0.62), the language and/or culture is familiar (0.16) and it feels safe (0.30). Total score on the family-and-friends travel benefits index for this hypothetical individual is 6.15.

Data limitations
Due to the way the data were collected by TAMS, we cannot identify the duration of pleasure trips taken; for instance, we cannot distinguish a three-week trip to Europe from an overnight camping trip. Also, although we know where respondents travelled for pleasure during the two-year survey period, we cannot identify the destination of any one particular trip. These limitations mean that we cannot match travel benefits to specific destinations or to different types of trips, and therefore cannot determine, for example, whether R&R trips tend to be longer vacations taken abroad and trips to nurture family and friendship ties are shorter visits made mainly in Canada.

Notes

  1. Gitelson, R. J., and Kerstetter, D. L. (1990). The relationship between sociodemographic variables, benefits sought and subsequent vacation behavior: A case study. Journal of Travel Research, 28(3), 24-29.
  2. Heung, V. C. S., Qu, H., and Chu, R. (2001). The relationship between vacation factors and socio-demographic and traveling characteristics: the case of Japanese leisure travellers. Tourism Management, 22(3), 259-269.
  3. Moscardo, G., Morrison, A. M., Pearce, P.L., Lang, C-T., and O’Leary, J. T. (1996). Understanding vacation destination choice through travel motivation and activities. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 2(2), 109-122.
  4. The four questions that did not fit into any benefits category were: to seek solitude or isolation; to have stories to share/something interesting to talk about; to be physically challenged/physically energized; to be pampered.

Family-and-friends and rest-and-relaxation: For some it’s a pair, for others it’s a trade-off

Canadian travellers aged 25 and over consider rest-and-relaxation to be an important benefit of taking a vacation or pleasure trip. Maintaining and strengthening family and friendship ties is also reported to be an important benefit of taking a pleasure trip.

Nevertheless, the benefits of having some unstructured time for rest and relaxation are more valuable to some travellers than others; exactly the same may be said of the benefits of nurturing family and social networks. On a basic level, we would expect people’s preferences—expressed as scores on each benefit index—to be influenced by their socio-demographic characteristics such as age, family structure and education. 12,13,14 

Family structure provides the clearest example of the different choices made by travellers with different backgrounds. Simply put, when travellers with children at home go on a vacation or pleasure trip, they want both more bonding with family and friends and more rest and relaxation than other travellers. They have a score of 5.6 on the family-and-friendship index, and a score of 6.6 to 6.7 on the rest-and-relaxation index (depending on marital status). In contrast, travellers who live alone place much less value on the travel benefits of family-and-friends, while travellers who are in their mid-50s or older are less motivated by R&R (Chart 3, Table A.1).

Chart 3 Travellers in different family types report wanting a different mix of preferred travel benefits

Chart 3
Travellers in different family types report wanting a different mix of preferred travel benefits

Table A.1 Average values for travel benefits indices, by selected characteristics

Table A.1
Average values for travel benefits indices, by selected characteristics

When women go on a pleasure trip, they reported wanting more in terms of family-and-friendship ties than men (5.3 compared to 5.0) although they also reported that they expect just as much in the way of rest-and-relaxation.

Travellers who work full time have a significantly higher-than-average score on the benefits index for R&R (6.5), while their interest in nurturing family-and-friendship ties on holiday is about average (5.1). Part-time workers have average scores for both the R&R and family-and-friends indices (6.2 and 5.3, respectively). Meanwhile, travellers who are not employed (e.g. homemakers, students) rank the travel benefits of family-and-friends higher than travellers in the paid workforce (Chart 4, Table A.1).

Chart 4 Travellers who work full-time prefer the travel benefits of R&R, those outside the workforce place higher value on family-and-friends

Chart 4
Travellers who work full-time prefer the travel benefits of R&R, those outside the workforce place higher value on family-and-friends

Children influence family-and-friends and work status affects R&R

Clearly, a traveller’s demographic and socio-economic characteristics overlap: for example, does a young mother have a higher score on the family ties index because she is a woman or because she has children. And is it her family or her work status that makes her value the R&R aspects of a vacation or a week-end away from home. In order to isolate individual factors from the overlapping effects of other variables, we ran multiple regression models. This allows us to estimate the influence of different characteristics on the benefits scores of Canadian travellers. (See “What you should know about this study” for more information about the models.)

Results of the models show that family structure has the most important impact on family-and-friendship scores, even when the influence of other variables is controlled for. Compared with solo travellers, travellers with children score about 1.0 point higher on the index, and travellers in couples about 0.8 points higher, regardless of their age (Table 1, Model 1).

Table 1 Family structure has the most important effect on scores for travel benefits of family-and-friendship ties, even after controlling for other factors

Table 1
Family structure has the most important effect on scores for travel benefits of family-and-friendship ties, even after controlling for other factors

Travellers with children also consider the benefits of rest-and-relaxation to be more important than older travellers do, after taking account of other factors in the model. This result confirms the findings of previous studies, which have identified lower interest in R&R among older travellers, partly because they are more likely to seek out discovery benefits while on a vacation or pleasure trip.15,16

The clearest preference for rest-and-relaxation is shown by travellers who have paid employment. Compared to retirees, travellers who work full time score 1.0 point higher on the R&R index, and part-time workers score almost as high (Table 1, Model 2). Non-retirees outside the workforce, such as homemakers and students, who do not work for pay but nevertheless have daily obligations, also had significantly higher scores on the R&R index than retirees, even when other variables like sex, age and family structure are taken into account. In contrast, work status has no influence on the scores for family-and-friendship ties.

Since the travel benefits of family-and-friends and R&R are moderately correlated, each benefit still has a significant influence on the scores of the other, even when other factors are controlled for. Travellers who describe rest-and-relaxation as a “highly important” travel benefit score 0.6 points higher on the family-and-friends index.  Similarly, reporting that nurturing family and friendship ties is “highly important” also increases a traveller’s R&R score by almost 0.6 points, compared with those who do not consider it to be so important.

Women continue to express a greater interest than men in the travel benefits of family-and-friends, even after controlling for other factors such as family structure and work status. Since women generally consider it their role to build and hold together the family’s social networks,17 they might be expected to rank these elements of a vacation or pleasure trip higher than men.

Level of education has a significant effect on attitudes to R&R, but not on family ties.  Travellers with a university degree score almost 0.3 points lower on the R&R index than travellers with high school or some postsecondary, even when other factors like age and income are taken into account.

Finally, the models show that household income has no effect on either R&R or family-and-friends as an explicit benefit of travel for pleasure. This result is unexpected, given the findings of previous studies.18,19 Most probably, our result is an artifact of the TAMS definition of travel (an out-of-town trip for at least one night), which included most survey respondents at almost all income levels. Income may very well be a significant factor for pleasure travel of longer duration or greater distance, which we cannot identify (see “What you should know about this study” for data limitations).

The benefits people want dictate the qualities they look for in a destination

The benefits people seek from a vacation or pleasure trip are driven by more than their socio-demographic characteristics. Because pleasure travel entails going out-of-town, travellers choose a destination that they expect to provide the benefits they seek. 20,21,22  For instance, if R&R is the primary benefit sought, we might expect travellers to go to a place that is “comfortable” so they won’t be required to deal with the unfamiliar.

Travellers who rank higher than average on the rest-and-relaxation benefits index want to go where there will be lots of fun activities for the children. They also prefer to choose a place where they feel safe and they know the language or culture (Chart 5, Table A.1).

Chart 5 Travellers scoring high on both family and R&R benefits look for a destination where the children have lots to do

Chart 5
Travellers scoring high on both family and R&R benefits look for a destination where the children have lots to do

To travellers who score above average on the family-and-friends index, entertaining the kids is also of primary importance. Not surprisingly, friends or family live at their preferred destination.

When we examine the effect of each destination determinant on both travel indices, we can identify three determinants that have a positive effect on scores, even when other factors are taken into account. Travellers score 0.3 points higher on both indices if they report that safety is highly important to them when choosing a destination. Similarly, both scores are somewhat higher for travellers who say that activities for adults are highly important and for those who do not want to worry about health issues (Table 1, Models 1 and 2,).

Travellers score 0.8 points higher on the family-and-friendship index when it is highly important that friends or family members are living at their chosen destination. This determinant has the opposite effect on the R&R index, where a traveller’s score drops by 0.5 points. And while an affordable travel package can raise scores by 0.3 points on the R&R index, it has no effect at all on the family-and-friends index, once all other factors are controlled for.

Learning-and-discovery: It’s all about adventure

About 28% of adult Canadian travellers report that learning and discovery is a highly important benefit of their pleasure travel: they want to see or do new things, learn about other cultures and places, and be intellectually challenged (Chart 1). Statistically, there is a somewhat moderate positive correlation between the benefits indices for learning-and-discovery and family-and-friends (Chart 2). But in many respects, travellers who place a high premium on discovery are the inverse of those who strongly value family and friendship ties.

Higher-than-average scores on the discovery index are posted by university-educated travellers and by solo travellers who live alone; in contrast, those with less education and travellers with children score significantly below average. Somewhat unexpectedly, scores do not differ across income groups or across work status (Chart 6, Table A.1).

Chart 6 Travellers who rank learning-and-discovery as very important travel benefits simultaneously score low on family-and-friends index

Chart 6
Travellers who rank learning-and-discovery as very important travel benefits simultaneously score low on family-and-friends index

After controlling for the effects of other variables, travellers with a university degree are still bigger fans of discovery benefits than those with high school or some postsecondary, scoring more than 0.7 points higher on the index. It is possible that travellers with higher education developed the habit of inquiry at university and remain “lifelong learners”; it is also possible that social norms require the highly-educated to travel to “expand their horizons,” and that people tend to conform to that expectation23 (Table 1, Model 3).

Family structure remains an important factor, since without children’s needs to consider, travellers can focus on the benefits they prefer. When all other variables including education are taken into account, travellers living alone or in a couple have significantly higher discovery scores than travellers living with children (Table 1).

The influence of destination on benefits scores, though, is greater than the traveller’s socio-demographic characteristics alone. Far and away the most important factor is the desire for novelty. Travellers who are explicitly looking for something new and different score over 1.3 points higher than those who are not. And those who want lots of adult activities also have significantly higher scores on the discovery index, once all other variables in the model are controlled for.  

As expected, travellers do not post high marks on the discovery index if they are looking for an experience within their “comfort zone,” for example, to feel safe, to know the language or culture at their destination, or to have friends or family living there. Nevertheless, travellers score almost 0.7 points higher if they rank nurturing family and friendship ties as a “highly important” travel benefit. This finding may reflect the probability that these travellers share their adventure with a spouse or a friend.  

Summary

People take a vacation or pleasure trip in the expectation of deriving certain benefits from their experience. Getting away from their daily routine is a highly important benefit for almost two-thirds of adult travellers, while almost half say that maintaining social and family ties is of primary importance to them. Discovering something new about the world or themselves is a key objective for just over one-quarter of Canadian adults who go on a vacation or pleasure trip.

There is a moderate positive correlation between the travel benefits of rest-and-relaxation and those of family-and-friendship ties; that is, people seeking to escape their everyday routines are also likely to be looking for ways to strengthen their social relationships. In this pair of benefits, though, R&R always has priority.

Travellers who score above average on these two indices share some common characteristics. They are generally under 55 and often have children at home. They prefer destinations that are comfortable for them, perhaps even predictable: a place where they feel safe, with lots of things to do and see for children and for adults. Travellers with high rest-and-relaxation scores are also looking for a destination that offers an affordable travel package; travellers with high scores on the family-and-friends index want a destination that presents no health concerns. Some choose a destination where people they know live nearby.

There is also a positive correlation between the learning-and-discovery and family-and-friends indices. However, travellers who highly value the discovery benefits of travel can be quite different than others. Travellers who actively seek new experiences or challenges when they take a vacation or pleasure trip generally do not have children under 18 at home, and are more likely to have a university degree. They report wanting to see a place that is special, probably somewhere they have never been before, and where they can participate in more adult-oriented activities.

Finally, once other factors like family structure and destination attributes are taken into account, work status is significant only for travellers looking for rest-and-relaxation, and education plays a role only among travellers who want intellectual discovery. The results of the regression models show that household income has no effect on any of the benefits scores, but this finding should be interpreted with caution.

Susan Crompton and Leslie-Anne Keown are senior analysts with Canadian Social Trends.

Notes

  1. Heung, V. C. S., Qu, H., and Chu, R. (2001). The relationship between vacation factors and socio-demographic and traveling characteristics: the case of Japanese leisure travellers. Tourism Management, 22(3), 259-269.
  2. About 79% of Canadians aged 25 and over—more than 18.4 million—spent at least one night out-of-town on a pleasure or vacation trip between 2004 and 2006. Statistics Canada, 2006. Travel and Activity Motivation Survey (TAMS), custom tabulation.
  3. In the third quarter of 2008, Canadians spent $15.1 billion on tourism within Canada; in the year 2007, they spent $26.7 billion in other countries. Statistics Canada. (2009). National Tourism Indicators, Quarterly Estimates, Third quarter 2008. Catalogue no. 13-009-XWE. Ottawa: Minister of Industry; and  Statistics Canada (2008). International Travel – 2007. Catalogue no. 66-201-X. Ottawa: Minister of Industry.
  4. Estimated revenues for all three levels of government were estimated to reach more than $19.7 billion in 2007, mostly from sales taxes on products and services and from income taxes on employment and business taxes. Statistics Canada. (2008). Government revenue attributable to tourism. The Daily, November 12, 2008.
  5. Statistics Canada. (2009).
  6. The primary target for cost-cutting was spending on restaurants and fast food. Wells, J. (2009, January 2). The Canadian consumer: Handle with care. The Globe and Mail, p. A1.
  7. Harris, M. (2008, December 17). Tight money means more ‘staycations.’ The Ottawa Citizen, p. D1.
  8. Sarigöllü, E., and Huang, R. (2005). Benefits segmentation of visitors to Latin America. Journal of Travel Research , 43(3), 277-293.
  9. Loker, L. E., and Perdue, R. R. (1992). A Benefit-based segmentation of a non-resident summer travel market. Journal of Travel Research, 31(1), 30-35.
  10. Gitelson, R. J., and Kerstetter, D. L. (1990). The relationship between sociodemographic variables, benefits sought and subsequent vacation behavior: A case study. Journal of Travel Research, 28(3), 24-29
  11. Gitelson and Kerstetter. (1990).
  12. Heung, Qu, and Chu. (2001).
  13. Moscardo, G., Morrison, A. M., Pearce, P. L., Lang, C-T., and O’Leary, J. T. (1996). Understanding vacation destination choice through travel motivation and activities. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 2(2), 109-122.
  14. Gitelson and Kerstetter. (1990).
  15. Moscardo, Morrison, Pearce, Lang, and O’Leary (1996).
  16. Gitelson and Kerstetter (1990).
  17. Maushart, S. (2001). Wifework: What marriage really means for women. London: Bloomsbury.
  18. Shoemaker, S. (1994). Segmenting the U.S. travel market according to benefits realized. Journal of Travel Research, 32(3), 8-21.
  19. Heung, Qu, and Chu (2001).
  20. Heung, Qu, and Chu (2001).
  21. Moscardo, Morrison, Pearce, Lang, and O’Leary (1996).
  22. Gitelson and Kerstetter. (1990).
  23. Pitts, R. E., and Woodside, A. G. (1986). Personal values and travel decisions. Journal of Travel Research, 25(1), 20-25.