The influence of education level on choosing coastal regions as tourist destinations

Abstract

The main aim of the paper is to investigate the influence of formal education level on decision-making process when choosing a tourist destination based on multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The survey was conducted on the sample of 252 respondents from Bačka region (Vojvodina/Serbia). Also, this study strives to examine the influence of education level on decision-making process including all five phases of decision-making process: need awareness, information search, alternatives estimation, purchase and purchase evaluation, applied to the process of choosing coastal regions as tourist destinations. The study shows that education level is related to four out of five phases of decision-making process (only in case of need awareness there is no statistically significant difference). This is especially important for creation of a marketing platform with promotional activities adjusted to different market segments differentiated by education level. Moreover, the study discusses differences in behaviour of different educational groups while choosing travel destinations.

Keywords

• consumer behavior
• decision making
• education level
• Serbia