"More and more people are ‘cash-rich’ and ‘time-poor’ today. They have less time to travel for leisure purposes, but they want to ensure that their trips create a memorable experience – one they can savour for a long time.

While today’s consumers increasingly demand better quality tourism products, it is paradoxical that the majority are still constantly on the look-out for `price deals`. Pricing clearly remains key.

Today`s leisure travelers, who comprise more singles, more female travelers, more grandparents traveling with their grandchildren, and more large family units (several generations), are much less concerned about which destination they visit, which means they tend to be less loyal to destinations than they ever were in the past.

In this age of environmental changes and the increasingly widespread awareness of the need to be more ‘green’, authenticity is also of growing importance to holidaymakers than ever before. They want more interaction with local people and a more emotional and cultural link to the people and communities they visit."

These are the findings of the Pisa Forum organized by IPK International and sponsored ITB Berlin. More details on the forum and the profile here.

These findings come to reaffirm the economic findings regarding leisure tourists: demand is highly elastic where price is concerned. Unlike the business tourists, who have the same taste for high-standard services and never worry about the price.

More singles, more female travelers. This is a natural trend I guess. A form of expressing one's independence from one point of view. Or maybe finally realizing that no one else will fulfill one's dreams. When you want to see certain places, you just need to make plans on your own and others will follow.

Apparently, the number of conservative tourists, those choosing the same location, the same hotel and eating at the same restaurant, is decreasing. With easy access to thousands of different travel destinations, who has time to go to the same place each time they travel? Maybe exposure to media reports about new hot spots is increasing tourists' taste for new discoveries.

I am more of an adventurer tourist. I like making my own schedules, first deciding when and where to go, what to do there, and then choosing where to stay. I am a fan of cheap lodging (budget hotels or hostels) when it comes to making expense plans for longer journeys (more than one week), but never think twice when it comes to paying a lot on visiting museums, palaces, churches and mosques. And I am crazy about little reminders of where I have been. And love to experience local cuisine instead of going to the universal fast foods that I feel safe with.

For short vacations, I am can be tempted by 4-5 stars hotels. Like this year in Istanbul. As much as I love luxury hotels and would kill to one day manage one, I find it quite dispensable when it comes to seeing more and doing significantly more at the same price.

I buy tourist guides. I could research online, which I actually do, but I find guides to be more detailed and as I buy them where I'm at, it's also a good reminder for later.

What kind of tourist are you? What do you like to do/experience when traveling?

Travel, Travel Destinations, Tourism, Tourist Attractions, Tourists