Loyalty Versus Variety: Insights from Hotel Selection Patterns in Australia

Abstract

This study explores the hotel selection patterns of leisure travellers to understand their loyalty or variety seeking intentions and profile them through their key characteristics, factors that influence their hotel consumption patterns. While data were collected via focus groups, twenty-two participants were purposively sampled based on the criteria-Australian travellers who have been to the same international destination three times or more for leisure. Data analysis used the thematic approach, which commenced with coding by identifying themes. The findings reveal that leisure travellers do seek variety in their hotel selection. It also identified three types of international leisure travellers based on their hotel selection within the same destination. Firstly, the same location within the destination and the same hotel as previous visits. Secondly, the same location within the destination and a different hotel to previous visits and finally, different location within the destination and a different hotel (rather than sticking to a hotel chain).The findings of this study further enrich the understanding of loyalty and variety-seeking behaviour in the accommodation sector. This paper extends the concept of variety seeking behaviour to micro level consumption choices—hotel selection at a destination.