Consumers' behaviour of 18-26 years old of the European Union and the low-cost European airline tickets (2008)

Résumé du document

The goal of this dissertation is to know and understand consumer behaviour of the low fare airline ticket consumers. In the first part, we explain the airline industry and more particularly the booming sector of low cost airlines in the European Union since the 1990s. After that, we show the economic cycle of airline industry. Then we explain the low cost economic model used by the low cost airlines. In addition, a survey has been realized on a sample of 150 English and French business students between 18 and 26 years old. The goal of this survey is to evaluate if this target of customers travel often by plane and what is their preference between the regular and low cost airlines. Furthermore, the consumer habits are broached as well as the impacts of different features on their consumer decision making. As a result, we share the influencing factors in two main groups: the factors linked to the consumer and the factors in relation with the consumer environment. We notice that the first influencing element is the price, followed by the previous experience and the recommendation, as both the second and third main influencing elements respectively. In addition, advertising appears to have no impact on them except for the Internet advertising. Finally, I create a new model of consumer decision-making, especially the low fare airline ticket consumers of 18-26 years old, living in the European Union.

Extraits

[...] Most of the population of 18-26 years old business students trust in the low cost airlines even if the price is so cheap. They voluntary choose to travel with these airlines. They need to travel for their leisure or study thus they do not hesitate to choose the cheapest price to avoid spending their entire budget. We noted two different groups of factors which can influence their decision-making progress during their purchase of low-cost airline ticket. The first group including the psychological and the personal factors showed the motivations, restraints, attitudes and risks of this population but also the socio-economic characteristics and the previous experience. [...]

[...] One main model appeared for them, called economic man”. This model had been criticized in many ways and was judged as too simplistic and idealistic. For the passive model, contrary to the previous view, the consumers were seen as impulsive and irrational buyers. In this model the main idea was that the consumer is manipulated by the firms, what was been contradicted by many marketing specialists. The cognitive view is a different approach, more psychological, the consumers were seen as a thinking problem solver. [...]

[...] The key elements are the consideration that the tourist choices are not always rational (Sirakaya & Woodside, 2004). In addition the interactions between the members have an important role in decision-making (Sirakaya & Woodside, 2004). The advantages of this model are for example that the authors use qualitative data and it recognizes the individual decision-making styles (Sirakaya & Woodside, 2004). However the model is too focused on the individual, in addition as a lot of model it is not reflexive and not dynamic and some variables are difficult to define (Sirakaya & Woodside, 2004). [...]

[...] Furthermore it recognizes the aspects of the unique tourism product. However it well includes the personal variables such as the needs or the motivation. In 1977 Schmöll developed a new model of travel decision process. As the previous model, Schmöll considers also the tourist as a rational decision maker. For him the decision process is made of several successive steps. This model shows one consumer influenced by four main factors i.e. travel stimuli, personal determinants of travel behavior, external variables and finally characteristics and features of the service destination. [...]

[...] For them during the decision making, the tourist uses routine or extensive/impulsive decision- making styles (Sirakaya and Woodside 2004). In addition for the authors it is important to know the psychological and social factors and its effects to understand well the travel decisions. As other authors they have described the traveler decision-making process in four different sets of variables i.e. the travel opportunities, the communication effort, the customer goals and finally the intervening variables (Sirakaya and Woodside 2004). Thus this decision-making process can be drawn as a dynamic model through successive stages. [...]