Individual differences in the tourist wayfinding decision making process

Abstract

Wayfinding is an important aspect that should be considered by tourist park managers when allocating resources and facilities to aid tourists navigating their way through a park. This paper discusses the influence of individual differences such as age, gender, travel group, and familiarity with the environment towards the wayfinding decision making process and physical movement. A case study was conducted where respondents’ movements were traced using GPS receivers to look at the movement patterns and at the end, they were asked to complete a questionnaire particularly to determine the individual differences. The spatial and attribute data were analysed using ESRI ArcGIS Tracking Analyst and ET Geowizards. SPSS 17 were used for statistical purposes. As a result, in terms of decision making, specific landmarks and strategies were noticed for specified age, gender, travel group, and familiarity with the environment. Furthermore, correlations were found between gender and familiarity with the environment with the physical movement such as direction, distance, and arrival time. This paper highlights the need for tourist managers to understand that tourists use different methods of wayfinding and produce different results based on different individual differences and that management should provide complementary materials to assist in wayfinding.