Are you an Allocentric or a Psychocentric Tourist?

Nomoskar! I hope that every one of you is on the best of your health. First, let me give you all some updates. The past week has been crazy for me. My first workshop as an instructor and my first as a speaker in a webinar, all happened in a single week. It has given me new energy to work even harder. One thing I have understood that things fall in place when it has to. All we have to do is keep working hard with sincerity.

Coming to today’s blog, I have written about the two different tourist types. I have been doing a lot of reading and stumbled upon the concepts of ‘Allocentric’ and ‘Psychocentric’ tourist types based on personality traits. Found it very interesting and so thought of sharing it with you all. Enjoy your read!

Tourism Industry is a complex industry, the success of which largely depends on the satisfaction of the customers i.e. the tourists. And to satisfy the tourist, understanding the expectations of the tourists is of utmost importance. Expectations pretty much evolve from one’s behaviour. Knowledge of tourist behaviour helps in marketing and product planning and development. Thus, understanding tourist behaviour helps in,

i) Create memorable experiences for the tourists

ii) assists in planning and development decision at the destinations

iii) success of the tourism product

When we are talking about tourist behaviour, one of the best-known models is the Plog’s model of typologies of tourists proposed by Stanley Plog. The model was published in the year 1974. It was published as an article titled, ‘ Why Destination Areas Rise and Fall in Popularity’.

The concept of Allocentric tourist and Psychocentric tourist is the outcome of the model.

Allocentric tourist: Allocentric tourists are the ones who are explorative. They are curious and outgoing by nature. They are risk-takers who enjoy learning and searching for history. They often end up exploring exotic adventurous and unexplored places. They are spontaneous and doesn’t stick much to the plans.

Psychocentric tourist: Psychocentric tourists are the non-adventurous lot. They prefer places that can be reached by road rather than flying as they are reluctant to travel by air for psychological reasons rather than financial. They often come out as self inhibiting and nervous. They chose places which are preferred by the mass.

To sum it up, Psychocentrics are the dependables and the allocentric are the venturers. Allocentric tourists are the ones who are often the first ones to visit a place/destination. They like experiencing new destinations and meeting new people. Whereas the psychocentrics prefer touristy places with familiar environments. Thus it won't be wrong in saying that the more touristy the destination is, the more are the psychocentric tourists visiting it.

Psychocentric tourists are the ones who opt for tour packages. They are the ones who can be blamed for cultural change and over-tourism. As the allocentric tourists will move in search of the unexplored. We can say that interests like learning new things, experiencing local culture and history, etc. are attributed by the allocentric tourists. But with time, the allocentric tourists are replaced by the psychocentric tourists because the allocentrics then move in search of new places. A fine example is Angkor Wat of Cambodia. Initially, a lot of westerners visited the place in search of exoticism. But over time the tourist market was flooded with Chinese tourists. The Asians mostly fall in the category of psychocentric tourists. With the flooding of Chinese tourists, the percentage of westerners visiting the place lessened. This brought in economic leakage in the country as Chinese spent lesser than the Westerners. This is what I meant by cultural change.

Now the question is, Today when we are talking about the revival of the tourism industry through the creation of new destinations and tourism products, do we need allocentric or psychocentric tourists?

Well maybe initially allocentric and then psychocentric. What do you all think?

I would like to know your take on the same. Hit me up in the comments section!

With lots of love,

Ambalika