Entertainment and Tourism

Economists and psychologists discuss our “needs” and our “wants”, but the difference between the two is vague and depends on point of view. Clearly, food is a need. Dinner at a fine restaurant is excessive to the need for nutrition, and so the excess must be a want.

The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited"

Wow, boring, although a practical definition for the travel agents, hoteliers, airlines and so on who are members of the WTO. But it obscures the psychological underpinnings of tourism.

More broadly, tourism is a recreation or an entertainment. It fulfills wants, not needs. In this way, dinner at a local restaurant or recreational shopping in a local mall is similar to tourism.

And conversely, many of the restaurant meals consumed three times a day while on foreign vacations are to fill travelers’ needs for nutrition, not wants for entertainment.

Common functional divisions between “fashion”, “tourism”, “restaurants”, “retailing” and so on are based the organization of the businesses doing the selling, not upon the psychology or wants of the customers. As such, these divisions often obscure the essence of the transaction between business and customer.

If you own a restaurant, retail store, spa

Functional divisions by their nature focus on providing for customers’ needs, but remain ignorant about their customers’ wants. And if you ask customers directly about their wants, they will be unable to articulate them. They may consume the service, and describe themselves as satisfied if queried, but be left with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their experience. Questionaries are unlikely to pinpoint a problem because the customers themselves are unaware.

Here is where the nexus of art, design, psychology, and marketing creates a successful business model. This insight is just as important to customers in their hometown as it is for customers who are “outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours”.