Planned or unplanned? Understanding the shopping behaviors and experiences of tourists

Abstract

As borders reopen after years of lockdown due to the pandemic, the tourism economy is recovering and creating a wave of consumer demand. Travelers are expected to be more conscious of planning a trip and embarking to a destination. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively understand tourist behaviors. This study proposes the concept of planned and unplanned tourist shoppers, based on whether shopping is a primary trip goal for travelers. The findings reveal that shopping and experiences vary by tourist shopper types. This study provides a novel insight into destination marketing for tourist shoppers.

Keywords

Shopping tourism tourism shopping unplanned shopper shopping expenditure shopping satisfaction revisit intention

Introduction

Travel and tourism were among the economic sectors most affected by worldwide travel restrictions and border closures caused by the global pandemic. With borders reopening after nearly two years, long-awaited travelers are actively seeking opportunities to relieve stress, have new experiences, and make memories abroad. As a wave of consumer shopping demand was observed as a form of revenge spending under pandemic-related restrictions (e.g. Bhasin et al., 2021), there is also “revenge travel,” which describes traveling for pleasure after being homebound for the past few years (Barret, 2022). As international traffic increases, consumer spending is likely to rebound (Bhasin et al., 2021). Under these circumstances, the tourism sector foresees a broad uptake in shopping demand in the post-pandemic era, with consumers ready to spend as restrictions are lifted.

As a pull factor, shopping is one of the primary motivations encouraging people to visit certain destinations, thereby generating substantial tourism income for those communities (Moscardo, 2004; Timothy, 2014). Shopping tourism, “a contemporary form of tourism fostered by individuals for whom purchasing goods outside of their usual environment is a determining factor in their decision to travel” (UNWTO, 2014: 13), has garnered significant attention in tourism research. As a survey by Airbnb showed, travelers are conscious (Singh, 2022), and their shopping thus does not occur incidentally or randomly; it requires careful planning in addition to the considerations made for accommodation, dining, transportation, and sightseeing. This research takes a comprehensive approach to understanding tourists’ shopping behaviors throughout their entire journey, the pre-, during-, and post-trip stages, to provide insights into shopping tourism in the post-pandemic era.

To date, the literature on tourism shopping has described “shopping tourists” and “tourist shoppers.” Shopping tourists are consumers who make shopping their primary purpose for a trip (e.g. Timothy, 2005), and tourist shoppers are those who make a purchase at their destination (Chang et al., 2006; Timothy, 2005). By definition, shopping tourists and tourist shoppers are not clearly distinguishable; shopping tourists are generally also tourist shoppers because they shop during their trips. Similarly, tourist shoppers can be shopping tourists if they have planned their shopping activities in advance. The literature on tourism shopping has primarily assumed all visitors to be tourist shoppers (e.g. Heung and Cheng, 2000).

Revisiting multiple aspects of tourist shoppers using the 4H2W framework, grouping tourist shopping into six categories (who, what, why, where, how, and how much) (Jin et al., 2017), this study divides travelers into planned and unplanned tourist shoppers and investigates their dynamic shopping behaviors and experiences during their trips. Planned tourist shoppers are people who plan in advance to participate in shopping at their destination as their trip's primary goal, whereas unplanned tourist shoppers are visitors who plan their trips around activities other than shopping but also shop at their destination. Building upon this framework, the first aim of this study is to identify factors that distinguish planned from unplanned tourist shoppers in terms of socio-demographics, travel characteristics, and information search behaviors at the pre-trip stage. The second goal is to understand the shopping behaviors and experiences of both types of tourist shoppers. Specifically, this study traces shopping places and products and explores the relationship between shopping expenditures and satisfaction during the trip according to tourist shopper type. Third, this study investigates the influence of tourists’ shopping experience on their revisit intention, one of the most vital measures of destination performance at the post-trip stage, which might differ according to the type of tourist shopper. Taking all of these objectives together, this study expands and advances the literature on shopping tourism. It also provides a comprehensive understanding of tourist shoppers based on whether the shopping is planned in advance and investigates how tourists’ shopping experiences and travel behaviors differ across the pre-, during-, and post-trip stages.

Literature review

Characteristics of tourist shoppers

The literature on shopping tourism suggests several factors for understanding the characteristics and behaviors of tourist shoppers, particularly demographics, travel features, and involvement in shopping (Jin et al., 2017; Moscardo, 2004; Oh et al., 2004). These factors can be classified into three categories of individual tourist features: sociodemographic characteristics, travel characteristics, and information search behaviors (Reisinger and Turner, 2002).

Research has shown an association between sociodemographic characteristics, such as age and gender, and tourists’ shopping behaviors (e.g. Oh et al., 2004). Sociodemographic segmentation is an important indicator of tourists’ shopping satisfaction (Reisinger and Turner, 2002). Both attitudes toward shopping and actual behaviors, such as frequency and pattern of shopping, correlate with gender and age (e.g. Jansen-Verbeke, 1991). Research has shown that mature consumers (i.e. older than 50 years), tend to spend the most money on shopping (Anderson and Littrell, 1995). Similarly, Keown (1989) reported that solitary survivors identified as mature travelers spend 41.4% of their total expenditure on shopping. However, more recent studies have found that tourists with a high level of enthusiasm for leisure shopping are likely to be young women (Murphy et al., 2011).

The type of travel is an important factor in understanding tourists’ shopping behaviors and satisfaction (Reisinger and Turner, 2002). Trip typologies are generally determined by tourists’ perceptions of the importance of various activities or the level of interaction with communities at the destination (Littrell et al., 1993). Thus, travel motivations and styles are related to the types of items purchased at the destination (Pizam and Mansfeld, 1999). Urban entertainment tourists, for example, are active shoppers who participate in shopping activities as a form of entertainment and tend to visit a wide variety of shopping venues (Littrell et al., 1993). Similarly, Oh et al. (2004) found that urban tourists had the highest tendency to shop and browse in book, food, and clothing stores. Conversely, the shopping activities of active outdoor tourists are focused on souvenir acquisition more than on exploring a variety of shopping places and opportunities (Littrell et al., 1993). Tourists’ patterns and levels of shopping expenditure can also be influenced by travel characteristics (Keown, 1989). Among overseas travelers to the United States, those who visit cultural attractions (i.e. cultural tourists) tend to spend more time and money on shopping during their visit than other travelers.

Information search behavior describes the strategies used in the decision-making process by which travelers collect and integrate information from various sources, both internal (e.g. retrieval of knowledge from memory) and external (e.g. collecting information from a marketplace), before making a final choice about a trip (Vogt and Fesenmaier, 1998). Travelers search for travel information not only before a vacation (pre-trip stage) but also while at the destination (during-trip stage) using portable technology such as mobile phones. The literature suggests systematic associations between information search strategies and travelers’ individual and situational characteristics (Gretzel et al., 2020). For example, the information sources that travelers use to collect destination information are related to their travel outcomes, such as travel expenditure (Kambele et al., 2015) and travel activities (Jun et al., 2007). The association between the types of information sources (online vs. offline) and travel products purchased (e.g. accommodation, events and activities, car rentals) varies by destination familiarity. Travelers who prefer online over traditional travel sources tend to incur higher travel expenditures (Luo et al., 2005). The different types of information-gathering styles are associated with different travel behaviors and individual characteristics. However, no studies have directly assessed the associations between information search behaviors and shopping behaviors. Therefore, it is proposed that differences in shopping behaviors during the trip will depend on the types of information sources consulted and the extent to which travelers search for information. The overarching research questions of the current study are as follows:

RQ1:

How do planned and unplanned tourist shoppers differ in terms of individual characteristics, travel features, and information search behaviors?

RQ2:

Do shopping behaviors at the destination differ by tourist shopper type (planned or unplanned)?

Perspective of unplanned and planned tourist shoppers

Consumers carefully go through each stage of the decision-making process before making purchase decisions (e.g. Blackwell et al., 1978). Planned shopping behavior represents a buying action conducted with a previously recognized problem in mind or a purchase intention formed prior to arriving at the shopping site (Piron, 1991). In comparison, an unplanned or impulse purchase occurs when consumers neglect those steps and shop spontaneously. By definition, impulse buying refers to a sudden urge to buy something immediately that is often too powerful to resist (Rook, 1987). An unplanned action is a core of impulse buying, which is provoked by an on-the-spot decision that is mostly attributable to exposure to a stimulus, such as an in-store incentive (Heilman et al., 2002; Park et al., 1989). However, unplanned purchases do not always occur impulsively; some research has indicated that consumers anticipate the occurrence of unplanned purchases and therefore have a mental budget in their spending expectations (Stilley et al., 2010). Consumers do not fully plan their shopping to save time (Zeithaml, 1985) or mental resources (Bettman, 1979), and they are willing to make or anticipate making spontaneous decisions at a shopping site. Similarly, Han et al. (1991) suggested the existence of reminder impulse buying and planned impulse buying, which result from needs that shoppers are reminded that they have or are determined to meet on the spot, respectively, in addition to pure impulse purchasing.

Tourists’ shopping behavior is a mixture of planned and unplanned behaviors (Meng and Xu, 2012), and tourist shoppers may or may not have pre-trip shopping plans or tasks. The non-shoppers in Moscardo's (2004) study made the fewest visits to all shopping areas, but a substantial proportion of them still visited shopping malls and local markets. As Josiam et al. (2005) demonstrated, pull motivators lead tourists to engage in shopping on the spot, in addition to the internal push motivation. Examples of such pull motivators that lead tourists to make unintended purchases range from the physical characteristics of shopping environments, such as the accessibility of shops and the uniqueness of the products, to bargaining factors, including sellers’ offerings and the perceived value for money (Josiam et al., 2005; Kemperman et al., 2009). Tourists’ positive feelings at the shopping destination can also increase their unplanned purchases (Sohn and Lee, 2016). Unusual surroundings and situational constraints are the factors that drive impulsive buying among tourists (Crawford and Melewar, 2003).

Despite the substantial proportion of spending accounted for by unplanned purchases, there has been little investigation of tourists’ shopping behaviors and satisfaction with regards to their planned and unplanned purchases. In general, unplanned buying leads to post-purchase regret (e.g. George and Yaoyuneyong, 2010; Hoch and Loewenstein, 1991). In contrast, Mukhopadhyay and Johar (2007) proposed that an unintended purchase can generate both positive and negative effects. For example, happiness as a reward can be derived from purchasing an item, whereas guilt is elicited as a deserved “punishment” for unplanned spending. Their empirical test showed that respondents reported more guilt and remorse, in addition to greater happiness, when they made unintended purchases than when they did not.

This study draws on cognitive dissonance theory to explain shopping satisfaction and the relationship between shopping expenditure and willingness to revisit a destination between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers. Festinger (1957) posited that inconsistency between cognitions generates a negative intrapersonal state and that individuals then seek and implement strategies to alleviate that aversive state (Elkin and Leippe, 1986). One possible strategy is to adjust the evaluation of a product or service in a more favorable light (e.g. Yap and Gaur, 2014). Chang and Tseng (2014) found that participants in their study reported higher satisfaction as they made more and stronger arguments in favor of their purchases, particularly in the context of impulse purchases. By increasing the value of their purchase, consumers tended to reduce their post-purchase dissonance (Balakrishnan et al., 2020). Consumers who are sensitive to status cues tend to overpay to mitigate their dissatisfaction (Garvey et al., 2017). Making a cognitive effort to justify a purchase in the first place reduces the post-purchase regret caused by an unplanned purchase (Park and Hill, 2018). Accordingly, this study formulates the third and fourth research questions to estimate the moderating effects that the different types of tourist shoppers have in the relationship between shopping experience and revisit intention.

RQ3:

Does the relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction differ between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers?

RQ4:

Does the relationship between shopping experience and revisiting intention for the destination differ between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers?

Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of the current study and indicates the research questions appropriate to each travel stage.

Figure 1.

Conceptual framework.

Methodology

Data collection

A paper-based survey was used to collect data from international travelers who were older than 15 years, visited South Korea (hereinafter ‘Korea’), and stayed in Korea for longer than one day and less than a year, excluding those in transit to other destinations. The survey was distributed to travelers at six international airports—Incheon, Gimpo, Gimhae, Jeju, Cheongju, and Daegu—and three international harbors—Incheon, Busan, and Gunsan—at the end of their trips.

A stratified sampling method based on origin countries was used. Considering the statistics of tourist arrivals and gender and age groups in the previous year, the number of target samples for each country was calculated at a 95% confidence interval. The relative response rates were taken into account when collecting the survey data. This study collected uniform numbers of responses across 12 months in 2019 with 1400 respondents from each month, to diminish the potential effects of seasonality. The total number of responses collected was 16,469; of these, tourists who reported participating in shopping during their visits were selected, resulting in a valid sample of 14,874 travelers.

Measurement development

The survey consisted of four sections. The first part asked respondents to indicate their travel behaviors in Korea, including the primary purpose of their trip, the number of previous visits to Korea, the number of travel companions for this trip, their planning horizon, travel flow, travel type, and information-search behaviors (Song and Bae, 2018; Yoon and Shafer, 1997). For the planning horizon, the respondents were asked when they had booked their flight tickets to visit Korea on an ordinal scale (a week, 1–2 weeks, 3–4 weeks, 1–2 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months). Travel flow referred to the respondents’ travel routes, that is, if they visited any other destinations before or after visiting Korea. With regard to information-search behaviors, the respondents were asked to indicate their main information sources when planning their trips and while visiting their destination; detailed categories are available in Table 1. Travel types were divided into three categories: foreign independent tour (FIT), air-tel package, and package tour (Park et al., 2020). FIT refers to a fully independent tour, wherein tourists develop their travel itineraries themselves. Air-tel means that travelers booked air tickets and accommodation via a tour package and arranged the rest of the products themselves.

Table 1.

Results of logistic regression: Planned tourist shoppers.

	Logistic regression
Variables	Coefficient	Std error	Exp(B)
Constant	−2.359***	0.207	0.094
Control variable Month when data were collected
Demographic features
Gender (Women)	0.624***	0.044	1.867
Age: 15–20	0.849***	0.145	2.336
Age: 21–30	0.727***	0.103	2.068
Age: 31–40	0.617***	0.104	1.852
Age: 41–50	0.542***	0.108	1.719
Age: 51–60	0.440***	0.105	1.553
Continent: North America	−1.600***	0.112	0.202
Continent: Europe	−1.358***	0.137	0.257
Continent: Oceania	−1.208***	0.242	0.299
Continent: Other	−1.780***	0.144	0.169
Travel characteristics
Number of visits to South Korea	0.013***	0.004	1.013
Number of travel companions	−0.002*	0.001	0.998
Visiting only Korea	0.068	0.111	1.070
Planning horizon: a week before departing	0.066	0.084	1.069
Planning horizon: 1–2 weeks before departing	0.015	0.078	1.015
Planning horizon: 3–4 weeks before departing	0.084	0.072	1.088
Planning horizon: 1–2 months before departing	0.167**	0.060	1.182
Pre-trip information search
Global website	1.520***	0.109	4.572
Local website	1.515***	0.114	4.549
Korean agency	1.527***	0.140	4.606
Local agency	1.171***	0.126	3.225
Media	1.393***	0.135	4.029
Friends	1.211***	0.111	3.357
Book	1.272***	0.192	3.567
Airline or hotel	0.783***	0.247	2.189
Government	0.439	0.274	1.551
Other	−0.545	0.827	0.580
Method	ML
Chi-square	1365.646***
Nagelkerke R-square	0.163
−2 Log-likelihood	12,826.255

Note: ***p < 0.001; *p < 0.05. Reference categories: month, December; age: 61 or older; continent: Asia; planning horizon: 2 months or longer before departing; pre-trip information search: no information.

The second part of the survey asked the respondents to report their shopping activities. Those who initially responded that they had shopped in Korea were asked to provide the items they had purchased and the places where they had purchased them (Lehto et al., 2004; Moscardo, 2004). Products were divided into 12 categories: cosmetics/perfume, food/groceries, clothing, shoes, bags, accessory/jewelry, ginseng/medical herbs, alcohol, tobacco, traditional folk art (or souvenir), K-pop products, and other. The shopping places were duty-free shops, road shops, markets, department stores, shopping malls, supermarkets, and other (Choi et al., 2016; Lyu and Noh, 2017). The travelers were then asked to explain their shopping expenditures and satisfaction (Josiam et al., 2005; Yu and Littrell, 2003).

The third part of the survey incorporated questions about destination performance, including overall travel satisfaction and willingness to revisit Korea (Park and Nicolau, 2019). The respondents’ demographic information, gender, age, and origin country, was also collected.

Data analysis

Four types of data analyses were conducted to address the research questions (Table 2). First, to identify the factors that distinguished planned tourist shoppers (RQ1), a logistic regression was performed with the variables for socio-demographics, trip features, and pre-trip information sources, with the month of data collection included as a control variable. This approach was taken to manage the potential effect of seasonality. Second, to understand the different shopping experiences of planned and unplanned tourist shoppers (RQ2), a set of chi-square analyses was conducted to assess differences in shopping items and places.

Table 2.

Framework of data analysis.

Research Questions	Control Variables	Explanatory Variables	Response Variables	Types of Analysis
RQ1	Month	Demographic characteristics Trip features Pre-trip information-search behaviors	Type of tourist shopper (planned or unplanned)	Logistic regression
RQ2	N/A	Planned or unplanned tourist behaviors	Shopping items Shopping places	Chi-square analysis
RQ3	Month Demographic characteristics Trip features During-trip information-search behaviors	Shopping expenditure Type of tourist shopper Shopping expenditure × type of tourist shopper	Shopping satisfaction	Ordinary least squares regression
RQ4	Month Demographic characteristics Trip features During-trip information-search behaviors	Shopping satisfaction Type of tourist shopper Shopping satisfaction × type of tourist shopper	Intention to revisit the destination	Ordinary least squares regression

Third, a series of ordinary least square regressions was conducted to estimate the effects of shopper type (planned vs. unplanned) on the relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction, thereby addressing RQ3. Several control variables were taken into consideration in this analysis: month of data collection, demographic characteristics, trip features, and during-trip information-search behaviors. Fourth, to estimate the effect of shopper type on the relationship between shopping (i.e. expenditure and satisfaction) and destination performance (i.e. intention to revisit the destination) (RQ4), another set of ordinary linear regressions was conducted.

Results

Profiles of respondents

Approximately 56% of the sample respondents were women, and 75% of the respondents were between 21 and 50 years of age. Most travelers (86%) were from Asian countries. In terms of travel features, the travelers had visited Korea on average 4.03 times and were likely to be traveling with companions. On average, the travelers stayed in Korea for about a week. Approximately 94% of travelers answered that they had visited only Korea on this trip, and about 39% of them decided on their trips one to two months in advance. More than 75% of travelers engaged in FIT travel, that is, they planned their own trips. Pre-trip, global websites and apps such as Google and Yahoo were the primary sources of information about Korea (33% of respondents). As expected, travelers mostly used smartphones to collect tourism information at the destination (70%). With regard to shopping characteristics, 56% of travelers indicated that shopping was one of the key purposes of their trips to Korea, which matches our profile of “planned tourist shoppers.” The tourist shoppers spent an average of USD 630.60 on shopping in Korea.

Factors used to classify planned tourist shoppers

To address RQ1, a set of logistic regression analyses was conducted to identify factors that predicted planned tourist shoppers (i.e. travelers whose primary purpose in visiting Korea was shopping) (Nagelkerke R-square = 0.163, p < .001). Table 1 presents a summary of that statistical analysis for each estimated variable. The model includes control variables to account for monthly seasonality. It reveals that planned tourist shoppers are likely to be women, young, and Asian. Considering the odds ratio, Exp(B), women are 1.9% more likely to be planned tourist shoppers than men. The probability of being a planned tourist shopper was 2.3%, 2.1%, and 1.9% greater for the age groups 10–19, 20–29, and 30–39, respectively, than for travelers aged 60 years or older (Table 3). Travelers who visited Korea from North America, Europe, and Oceania were 0.20%, 0.26%, and 0.33% less likely to be planned tourist shoppers, respectively, than those from Asian countries. In terms of their travel characteristics, planned tourist shoppers tended to visit only Korea on their trips and to reserve their flight tickets farther in advance than other travelers. With regard to information search behaviors, planned tourist shoppers were more likely to search for information than unplanned tourist shoppers. In particular, the probability of becoming a planned tourist shopper was 4.6% and 4.5% greater for those who used global or local websites and Korean travel agencies, respectively, than for those who had not obtained any travel information.

Table 3.

Differences in shopping items purchased between types of tourist shoppers.

	Unplanned tourist shoppers	Planned tourist shoppers	Chi-square
Cosmetics/perfume	38%	59%	963.44***
Food/groceries	27%	17%
Clothing	13%	13%
Shoes	2%	2%
Bags	2%	1%
Accessory/jewelry	2%	1%
Ginseng/medical herbs	4%	2%
Alcohol	2%	0%
Tobacco	3%	1%
Traditional folk art (or souvenir)	4%	1%
K-pop products	3%	2%
Other	1%	0%

Note: ***p < 0.001.

Assessing shopping behaviors: Shopping items and places by tourist shopper type

Table 4 compares the differences in shopping items purchased by unplanned and planned tourist shoppers. Among unplanned tourist shoppers, cosmetics/perfume represented 38% of the items purchased, followed by 27% for food/groceries, and 13% for clothing. Among planned tourist shoppers, cosmetics/perfume represented almost 60% of the purchased items, followed by 17% for food/grocery and 13% for clothing. Interestingly, although cosmetics/perfume was the dominant product category across both types of shoppers, unplanned tourist shoppers tended to purchase more food/grocery items than planned shoppers (Table 3).

Table 4.

Differences in shopping places between types of tourist shoppers.

	Unplanned tourist shoppers	Planned tourist shoppers	Chi-square
Duty free	41%	41%	357.80***
Road shop	30%	40%
Market	6%	5%
Department store	7%	4%
Shopping mall	6%	4%
Other	10%	4%

Note: ***p < 0.001.

Consistent with the products purchased, the types of tourist shoppers showed significant differences in their preferred shopping places. Planned tourist shoppers were more likely than unplanned tourist shoppers to purchase products at road shops (Table 4). Unplanned shoppers visited markets, department stores, and shopping malls more readily than planned shoppers.

Assessing shopping experiences: Shopping expenditure and satisfaction by tourist shopper type

Whether the relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction varied between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers was analyzed next. Table 5 provides a summary of the regression analyses that assessed shopping satisfaction as an outcome variable (adjusted R² = 0.029, p < .001). To test for multicollinearity, the VIF values of the independent variable were checked, and they were all below the cut-off point of 10 (Hair et al., 1995). Unlike the logistic regression that considered pre-trip information sources used by travelers (Table 3), this OLS regression model considered information sources that the travelers used at their destination because shopping experiences can be both destination activities and flexible activities. In other words, travelers can actively search for information about shopping at the destination and rapidly change their behaviors instead of relying entirely on information obtained before the trip (Park and Fesenmaier, 2014). Controlling for several potential exogenous variables (demographics, trip features, and during-trip information sources), the statistical result indicates a positive relationship between shopping expenditure and shopping satisfaction, in line with previous findings (Babin and Darden, 1996). Interestingly, tourist shopper type had a negative moderating effect on the relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction (β = −.0.033, p < .001). Figure 2 presents this relationship, suggesting that unplanned tourist shoppers tended to demonstrate a stronger positive relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction than planned tourist shoppers.

Figure 2.

The relationship between shopping expenses and satisfaction between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers.

Table 5.

Results of regression analysis for the relationship between shopping expenditure and satisfaction by type of tourist shoppers.

Variables	Coefficient	Std error	VIF
Constant	3.766***	0.085
Control variable Month when data were collected
Demographic features
Gender (Women)	0.026^a	0.014	1.064
Age: 10–20	0.251***	0.046	1.869
Age: 21–30	0.096**	0.034	5.766
Age: 31–40	0.060^a	0.035	4.704
Age: 41–50	0.012	0.035	3.693
Age: 51–60	−0.023	0.035	3.816
Continent: North America	0.248**	0.035	1.225
Continent: Europe	0.136**	0.044	1.063
Continent: Oceania	0.162*	0.079	1.049
Continent: Other	−0.046	0.043	1.152
Travel characteristics
Number of visits to South Korea	−0.004***	0.001	1.083
Number of travel companions	0.000	0.000	1.043
Visiting only Korea	0.034	0.035	1.231
Planning horizon: a week before departing	−0.105***	0.027	1.422
Planning horizon: 1–2 weeks before departing	−0.067**	0.025	1.512
Planning horizon: 3–4 weeks before departing	−0.070**	0.023	1.632
Planning horizon: 1–2 months before departing	−0.050**	0.019	1.925
Information search at the destination
Smartphone	−0.069**	0.026	3.021
PC/laptop	−0.054	0.038	1.651
Information center-airport	−0.195*	0.077	1.111
Information center-outside of airport	−0.094	0.079	1.104
Information center-other	−0.164***	0.045	1.376
Guidebook	−0.044	0.081	1.102
Friends	0.014	0.054	1.241
Local residents	−0.062	0.040	2.114
Other travelers	−0.169	0.106	1.061
Other	0.406***	0.097	1.090
Travel type-FIT	0.060	0.020	1.896
Travel type-Air-tel	0.053	0.028	1.622
Type of tourist shopper
Ln_Shopping expenditure	0.078***	0.010	2.646
Type of tourist shoppers	0.246**	0.080	33.816
Ln_Shopping satisfaction × Type of tourist shopper (planned versus unplanned)	−0.033*	0.014	38.113
Adj R-square	0.029
F-statistics	8.403
P-value	0.001

Note: ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; ^ap < 0.1. Reference categories: month, December; age, 60 or older; continent, Asia; planning horizon, 2–6 months before departing; information search at the destination, travel guide. Shopping expenditure was calculated by log transformation.

Estimating the relationship between shopping experience and revisit intention by tourist shopper type

A regression model was calculated to address RQ4 by estimating the relationship between shopping satisfaction and intention to revisit the destination between the types of tourist shoppers (planned vs. unplanned). The explanatory variable (tourist satisfaction) was calculated by mean centering to prevent multicollinearity (Iacobucci et al., 2015). Controlling for seasonality, demographic features, travel characteristics, during-trip information search behaviors, and shopping expenditure, the results reveal that planned tourist shoppers had a positive moderating effect on the relationship between shopping satisfaction and revisiting intention (Table 6). As shown in Figure 3, the effect of shopping satisfaction on revisit intention was stronger for planned than for unplanned tourist shoppers. In other words, the likelihood of visiting Korea again increased with shopping satisfaction more for planned tourist shoppers than for unplanned shoppers.

Figure 3.

The relationship between shopping satisfaction and intention to revisit the destination between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers.

Table 6.

Results of regression analysis to assess the relationship between shopping expenditure/satisfaction and revisiting intention.

Variables	Coefficient	Std error	VIF
Constant	3.825	0.066
Control variable Month when data were collected
Demographic features
Gender (Women)	0.004	0.016	1.060
Age: 10–20	0.248***	0.050	1.875
Age: 21–30	0.081*	0.037	5.775
Age: 31–40	0.068	0.037	4.704
Age: 41–50	0.081*	0.038	3.702
Age: 51–60	0.076*	0.037	3.821
Continent: North America	0.075*	0.038	1.198
Continent: Europe	0.024	0.047	1.056
Continent: Oceania	0.103	0.084	1.046
Continent: Other	0.071	0.046	1.138
Travel characteristics
Number of visits to South Korea	0.017***	0.001	1.084
Number of travel companions	−0.001*	0.000	1.043
Visiting only Korea	−0.002	0.037	1.226
Planning horizon: a week before departing	−0.089**	0.029	1.413
Planning horizon: 1–2 weeks before departing	−0.088**	0.027	1.502
Planning horizon: 3–4 weeks before departing	−0.051*	0.024	1.626
Planning horizon: 1–2 months before departing	−0.064**	0.020	1.921
Information search at the destination
Smartphone	0.257***	0.035	4.747
PC/laptop	0.293***	0.045	2.044
Information center-airport	0.174*	0.085	1.166
Information center-outside of airport	0.204*	0.087	1.148
Information center-other	0.111*	0.052	1.592
Guidebook	0.329***	0.043	2.591
Friends	0.285***	0.088	1.175
Local residents	0.311***	0.062	1.371
Other travelers	0.073	0.116	1.090
Other	0.357***	0.107	1.139
Travel type-FIT	0.046*	0.022	1.891
Travel type-Air-tel	0.059*	0.030	1.618
Type of tourist shopper
Shopping satisfaction	0.308***	0.016	2.487
Type of tourist shopper	0.043**	0.016	1.163
Shopping satisfaction × Type of tourist shopper (planned versus unplanned)	0.054*	0.021	2.468
Adj R-square	0.129
F-statistics	37.805
P-value	0.001

Note: ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05. Reference categories: month, December; age, 60 or older; continent, Asia; planning horizon, 2–6 months before departing; information search at the destination, travel guide.

Discussion and conclusion

In preparing for the rebuilding of travel and tourism after years of downturn caused by the pandemic, it is necessary to understand travelers who are ready to go to their dream destinations. To better understand conscious travelers, this research investigated tourist behaviors with a focus on shopping and used a sample of travelers to South Korea as a case study. Based on the concept of shopping tourism suggested by the UNWTO (2014), this study proposes two categories of tourist shoppers—planned and unplanned—depending on whether shopping was their primary goal when planning their trips, to provide a comprehensive understanding of tourist shoppers throughout their travel journeys. As suggested in the framework (Figure 1), this study sheds particular light on the interplay among the different travel stages to (1) identify shoppers from the pre-trip stage, (2) understand different shopping behaviors in the during-trip stage, and (3) examine how shopping experiences influence shopping satisfaction and future visit intentions in the post-trip stage. This is a meaningful approach because it provides holistic insights into how factors at the initial stage could interact with other factors in the later stages.

This study makes three theoretical contributions. First, it investigated tourist shoppers by defining a typology of these consumers—planned and unplanned—based on whether shopping was their primary goal during the pre-travel planning stage. Most studies classify visitors as tourist shoppers if they visit cities or destinations that are popular for the shopping activities they offer, or they check their sample suitability by asking about travelers’ attempts to purchase products at their destination (e.g. Choi et al., 2016). This study took a novel approach by incorporating the marketing concept of unplanned purchasing behaviors into tourism, thus contributing to shopping tourism research. Although a call has been made to collect detailed observations of tourist shopping behaviors that are a mixture of planned, impulsive, and experiential consumption behaviors (Meng and Xu, 2012), most studies have overlooked the motivational factors that might be detected at the pre-travel planning stage. Despite its simplicity, the classification introduced in this study is meaningful because it illuminates the underexplored domain of unplanned tourist shoppers who end up unexpectedly purchasing products at their destination.

The second contribution of this study was to investigate the actual behaviors of planned and unplanned shoppers. It first identified the influence of sociodemographic characteristics, travel-related features, and pre-travel information sources to help identify planned and unplanned tourist shoppers. It then provided the novel and elaborate findings that tourists’ shopping behaviors can be explained with differences in purchased items and shopping venues and that tourists’ performance evaluations (e.g. shopping satisfaction and revisit intention) are shaped differently according to shopper type. The findings show that women were more likely to be planned tourist shoppers than men, in line with previous studies that have shown that women are more involved with tourist shopping than men (Josiam et al., 2005). The results also show that younger tourists were more likely than older tourists to make shopping the primary purpose of their trips. Although Jansen-Verbeke's (1991) study identified senior travelers (age >50) as a significant shopping group, more recent findings in academic and industry reports have illuminated the purchasing power of young consumers, from women in their twenties (e.g. Lehto et al., 2004) to millennials (e.g. Global Blue, 2018). Our results show that, compared with the reference group of consumers older than 60 years, the age groups from 10 to 20, 21 to 30, and 31 to 40 years were significantly more likely to be planned tourist shoppers, which corresponds to the age range of millennials (those who were born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s).

Additionally, the findings demonstrate different shopping behaviors between planned and unplanned tourist shoppers, such as the items they purchased and the places they visited during their trips. Given that the survey respondents were visiting Korea, it is reasonable that cosmetics/perfume was the most frequently purchased item category across the two types of shoppers, supported by the boom in K-cosmetics and K-beauty (Allied Market Research, 2019). Another interesting finding is that unplanned tourist shoppers tended to purchase typical tourist artifacts, such as food/groceries, ginseng/medical herbs (health food), or traditional folk art (souvenirs), consistent with Swanson's (2014) report on souvenir shopping. In contrast, two thirds of the items purchased by the planned shoppers were perfume and cosmetics, demonstrating their goal-oriented shopping behaviors. Meanwhile, the finding for unplanned tourist shoppers was in line with earlier research indicating that unplanned shoppers tend to purchase non-staple items such as souvenirs more frequently than everyday staples, in this case, cosmetics (e.g. Iyer, 1989; Kollat and Willett, 1969).

Third, this study identified how shopping experiences influence behavioral intentions according to shopper type by examining the post-travel stage. The positive relationship between shopping satisfaction and revisit intentions shows that at any level of spending, tourists who are satisfied with their shopping experiences tend to revisit the destination. Our data show a stronger satisfaction–revisit intention relationship among planned tourist shoppers, which is in line with earlier findings suggesting that shopping satisfaction increases destination loyalty (e.g. Sirakaya-Turk et al., 2015). The use of shopping expenditure as a predictor of shopping satisfaction in this study is novel and meaningful; most earlier studies have treated it as a consequence of sociodemographic characteristics or travel-related factors (e.g. Alegre and Cladera, 2012; Josiam et al., 2005; Lehto et al., 2004). These findings indicate that how satisfaction is shaped by expenditure depends on shopper type. The positive effect of expenditure on shopping satisfaction found here is consistent with Babin and Darden's (1996) findings and indicates an interesting pattern. In particular, the interaction between shopping expenditure and shopper type suggests that unplanned tourist shoppers’ satisfaction increases with the amount they spend on shopping. These findings on the interaction between expenditure and shopper type extend previous studies by incorporating shoppers’ pre-trip motivations into their post-trip evaluations. The results for the unplanned tourist shoppers can be viewed from the perspective of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957). Because consumers want to minimize their level of dissonance (Balakrishnan et al., 2020; Okada and Hoch, 2004), unplanned tourist shoppers might report higher shopping satisfaction as they spend more on shopping. Park and Hill (2018) also demonstrated that unplanned purchases can trigger post-purchase regret, which is moderated by cognitive effort and justification. Likewise, unplanned tourist shoppers might have deliberately reported higher shopping satisfaction as they spent more on their “unplanned” shopping. In contrast, planned tourist shoppers did not relate their shopping expenditure with satisfaction, but they still reported greater satisfaction with their shopping than the unplanned shoppers did.

From a managerial perspective, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) should develop micro-segmentations to distinguish planned from unplanned tourist shoppers, rather than grouping them into a generic cluster. These research findings demonstrate that demographics, trip-related features, and the sources used to search for destination information all differ by shopper type. To encourage tourist shoppers, DMOs should provide shopping information from multiple sources. They could target, for example, young women who would like to visit only Korea. Based on the different shopping behaviors of planned and unplanned tourist shoppers, duty-free shops and road shops could cater to planned tourist shoppers by promoting cosmetics and perfume products. More importantly, DMOs should develop promotional and marketing strategies to advertise food/groceries, ginseng/medical herbs, alcohol, tobacco, and traditional folk art (souvenirs) to unplanned tourist shoppers in department stores and shopping malls. It is recommended that DMOs focus as much on unplanned tourist shoppers as they do on planned tourist shoppers because the shopping expenditure and satisfaction of unplanned (vs. planned) tourist shoppers had a greater influence on shopping performance (i.e. shopping satisfaction) and destination performance (i.e. revisit intention).

Despite its strengths, this study has some limitations that could be improved in future research. The most important limitation of this study is the use of survey data collected before the pandemic. However, given the expected surge in travel demand and revenge travelers, it is meaningful to revisit and understand past patterns to strategically respond to unprecedented and emerging traveler behaviors. Future researchers should collect and review data at the end of the year the border reopened based on the framework suggested here and examine whether they replicate these results.

Another limitation relates to the typology of shoppers. Although this practice is based on the definition of shopping tourism in UNWTO (2014) and has been used in prior research (Choi et al., 2018), it might not be robust enough to explain the characteristics of unplanned shoppers in depth. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a thorough investigation of tourist shoppers’ motivations in the pre-trip stage by adopting qualitative or longitudinal methods, which will enrich the understanding of planned and unplanned tourist shoppers.

Lastly, this study mainly investigated shopping and travel behaviors. However, future research integrating the psychological and behavioral mechanisms of planned and unplanned tourist shoppers will provide more comprehensive insights into the entire phenomenon of shopping tourism. This study focused on international travelers who visited Korea, so to generalize these findings, future tourism researchers should expand the scope to a wider array of cities and countries across the globe. The list of items presented to foreign travelers in this study was made in light of the popularity of certain products in Korea as a destination. Future researchers should extend these product categories to develop a more comprehensive understanding of shopping behaviors by tourists.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea, (grant number 2020S1A5A2A03).

ORCID iD

Sangwon Park

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