The study of consumer behavior focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption-related items (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1997). The field of consumer behavior covers a lot of ground. According to Solomon (1996), consumer behavior is a study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.
It is therefore important to analyse the individual determinants and environmental influences that affect consumption behavior in the tourism and hospitality sector. The first being what is termed demographics and psychological variables and they include a number of elements. The element to start of with is gender. Gender is an individual determinant whether someone is male pr female will have an influence on the consumption behavior. For example in tourism activities it is more likely that the males are more likely to participate in mountain climbing as compared to their female counterparts because the activity maybe more physically challenging.
Another individual determinant that is under demographics and psychological variables is age. Age has an influence in affecting the consumption behavour in the tourism and hospitality industry. An example is that of a greater number of young children would want to visit the Disneyland that has games, cartoon characters and other things associated with children. Then for the old age, they would probably want