Travel Magazine Proposal (Thesis Proposal Sample)

TRAVEL MAGAZINE PROPOSAL
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INTRODUCTION
Various scholars have claimed that travel experiences are mainly based on pleasure and are consumed through images such as stories (articles) and images (Hsu and Song, 2014). At the same time, one of the main factors that affect consumer purchasing decisions for a particular service or product is the available information sources about them (Alcázar, Piñero and Maya, 2014; and Kim et al., 2017). Information search includes looking into various information sources about a particular services or products before deciding on which one to purchase. In the case of tours and travel, it is mostly assumed that publications about travel and tourism have significant impacts on the decisions made by travellers. Existing research has collectively suggested that most tourists are from the high-class i.e. have high education, are mature and have high income earnings (Bernini and Cracolici, 2015). However, this is a simplistic profile of tourists that does not exhaustively reflect the highly diversified types and levels of tourists and tourist attractions. This means that there are either very few or no magazines that offer tours and travel information to its clients based on their demographics or socio-economic status. As such, this research intends to come up with a magazine to offer information about various tourist attractions that different types of tourist attractions offer including the available modes of transport, accommodation and restaurants available.
CONTEXT
This magazine will look into the needs of the tourists in terms of their socio-economic class. The magazine is intended for Chinese travellers aged between 20 and 50 years and will focus on the most popular travel destinations based on affordability to different social classes. The magazine will segment the available market in terms of their socio-economic status and suggest ways within which the consumers can enjoy depending on their incomes. The magazine will focus on particular travel destinations and offer different plans from which the client can choose from depending on his or her income including the various modes of transport, available food and accommodation and their costs. Every place proposed in the magazine will be suggested with clients’ social economic status in mind. The magazine intends to answer questions such as:
* Which country or region is known for which tourist activities (What unique features can be found in these regions and nowhere else?
* Are the places suitable for those in the upper class, lower class or middle class?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Most studies on the effects of tourism promotion efforts agree that putting out information about travel destinations can significantly influence consumer purchase decisions (Hanusch, 2010). However, with the development of the internet, these information sources are mostly found online within social media platforms and travel websites. For the purpose of this study, however, it is important to understand the effects of informal sources such as travel magazines on travel behaviour and decisions. Abdereck (2016) for one looked into the influence of travel magazines on consumer travel decisions and behaviour and found that travel magazines, such as Arizona Highways used in the study is an influential and vital source of information for travellers whether within their home area or in distant destinations. The magazine did not only affect travel decisions within Arizona but also to other places based on the other suggestions in it.
Woojin and Andereck (2016), on the other hand, investigated how consumer travel decisions are affected by pictures and feature stories on informal sources of information such as travel magazines. The authors found that the pictures and feature stories significantly and positively impacted the consumer interest in traveling to the suggested destinations. At the same time, the participants of the study indicated that the information on the magazine was largely helpful in their decision-making process. Many existing studies also suggest that most tourists are high income earners, are mature aged and have attained high education levels. However, according to Kim, Cheng and O’Leary (2007) this is a rudimentary profile of tourists and does not reflect the diversity of tourists and the existing tourist attractions. To this end, the authors looked into how consumer demographics and their socio-economic status influence their tourism patterns in various types of cultural attractions. They found that the patterns of participations for different types of cultural attractions depended on the demographic or socio-economic features of the consumers. Furthermore, the authors found that these visitations were also influenced by their distance from the consumers and the number of trips it would take to get there. These effects were also varied depending on the unique characteristics of each of the tourist attractions.
Li et al. (2011) also investigated the expectations of Chinese tourists on various travel products. The authors found that as much as international Chinese tourists had similar tours and travel desires and needs, their expectations with regard to service standards and amenities were found to be quite particular. Being able to understand these requirements and expectations is vital for travel and tourism companies and agencies for better service provision. Various studies have suggested that human mobility patterns are greatly influenced by regional socio-economic indicators such as poverty rate and per-capita income (Gonzalez, Hidalgo, & Barabasi, 2008; De Montjoye et al., 2013 and Song et al., 2010). To this regard, Xu et al. (2018) studied how the socio-economic status of travellers affects their travel patterns using Boston and Singapore as case studies. From the results, a multifaceted view of the links between social economic status and mobility is provided. The authors specifically found that generally wealthier phone user groups travelled longer distances in Boston than in Singapore. This, according to the authors, is most likely because the rich neighbourhoods in these cities are peripheral and central respectively. For the other three mobility indicators i.e. activity entropy, number of activity destinations and travel diversity, it was found that phone users across various socio-economic statuses in both cities showcased highly similar features. The authors concluded that in the two cities, the amount of wealth does not significantly influence human mobility around the cities. This means that the relationship between the social economic status of travellers in these cities and their mobility patterns vary depending on the city which means that the relationship is affected by how the houses are arranged, the available opportunities for employment and available human activities.
From the above-mentioned studies, it is clear that magazines affect consumer travel decision making patterns. Additionally, it could be argued that the advent of the internet has led to a reduction in the use of informal sources of information such as magazines by consumers. However, these magazines can also be digitalized and accessed online. This means that magazines would remain a relevant source of travel information for a long time to come. At the same time, even with their existence and long-term relevance, very few magazines have targeted particular consumers depending on their demographics and socio-economic status. From the studies, it is clear that these factors also influence travel decisions and as such it is important to have magazines that give plans and suggestions to travellers depending on their affordability to them.
ARTEFACT DESCRIPTION
This paper proposes a magazine that would provide two types of services. First, it will provide information about the various travel destination that potential tourists can travel to in terms of the regions and the available unique tourist attractions within them. This information will mostly come from different websites, travel blogs, travel agencies social media platforms/pages and from personal experiences and pictures taken by this author. The magazine will provide information on the different tourist activities available in particular regions, what the available sources of accommodation, travel and food are and how affordable they are. At the same time, one factor that makes this magazine especially unique is the fact that it will focus on the needs of the travellers with regard to their social economic classes. Every consumer will find a section with tourist attractions that they can relate to and afford and within that, they will be able to find the different places they can visit and activities they can engage in.
RESEARCH METHODS
The current paper proposes a travel magazine that provides plans and suggestions for travellers from different socio-economic statuses from China. The magazine will focus on travellers aged between 20 and 50 years. Every destination proposed in the magazine will be developed with the tourist’s social economic status in mind and as such will give detail descriptions of the costs of different services and amenities available. The author will first analyse the pictures and information previously gathered from destinations visited after which other information will be gathered using qualitative methods and content analysis from different online sources especially from the destination websites, blogs and social media platforms. According to Krippendorff (2004), content analysis is the proc...