Assessing the viability of university alumni as a repeat visitor market

Schofield, P; Fallon, P

Abstract

Both student and repeat visitor markets have been recognised by tourism academics and destination
marketing agencies, but the alumni repeat visitor market has been neglected. The paper examines
alumni propensity to return as tourists to their university city using a sample of graduates from
a university in the North West of England. The large majority returned to the destination as tourists
within six months of graduation, although visitation declined sharply after the first return visit. A cluster
analysis using both motivation and constraint dimensions identified six a posteriori segments. Three of
these were found to have significant potential because of their strong emotional attachment to the
destination rather than the university. The accessibility of segments for targeting, through the development
of links between the DMO and the educational institution, also supports their commercial
viability.

Citation

Schofield, P., & Fallon, P. (2012). Assessing the viability of university alumni as a repeat visitor market. Tourism Management, 33(6), 1373-1384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.12.021

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Jul 25, 2012
• Journal: Tourism Management
• Print ISSN: 0261-5177
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1373-1384
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.12.021
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.12.021