Applying expenditure-based segmentation on special-interest tourists: The case of golf travelers

Given the growing competition among golf travel destinations and the increasing costs of managing and maintaining related facilities, it is important to investigate and understand the expenditure patterns of golf travelers. The results of this research provide useful information for golf destination marketers in the development of strategies to attract and retain golf travelers. This study uses an expenditure-based segmentation of golf travelers visiting a Southern Gulf region in the United States. The findings indicate that the heavy spenders exhibit clear spending patterns and are responsible for most of the sample's total expenditures. The heavy spenders also are well differentiated along golfographic and tripographic measures, but not along sociodemographics and information sources used prior to the vacation. The article ends with an assessment of the contributions of the findings both to the literature on travel expenditure and to golf destination marketers.