Title: Member segmentation of vacation travel club: price sensitivity and member status

Authors: Bo Hu Ferns, Ruomei Feng, Siu-Ian So, Alastair M. Morrison

Addresses: Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA. ' The Nielsen Company, West Lafayette, IN 47907 2021, USA. ' Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, Avenida Padre Tomas Pereira, Taipa, Macau, China. ' Belle Tourism International Consulting, 18 Shunyi Road, Suites 601-601, Shanghai 200063, China

Abstract: For membership programmes, segmentation is an important marketing tool to define groups who share common characteristics and values. An efficient segmentation of members can positively benefit the development of member relationships. With a vacation travel club as the empirical environment, this study found two efficient member segmentation dimensions: price sensitivity (price-sensitive/price-insensitive) and member status (first-time member/repeat member). The identified 2&multi;2 segments were significantly different in attitudes to memberships, demographics and member characteristics.

Keywords: membership programmes; member segmentation; price sensitivity; status; vacation travel clubs; holidays; marketing; groups; common characteristics; common values; member relationships; empirical environments; first-time members; repeat members; USA; United States; price-sensitive; price-insensitive; demographics; revenue management; hospitality management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRM.2010.035958

International Journal of Revenue Management, 2010 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.284 - 305

Published online: 11 Oct 2010 *

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