Data-driven Market Segmentation in Tourism – Approaches, Changes Over Two Decades and Development Potential

Abstract

Market segmentation studies have become very common in tourism research. While the majority of studies follow an a priori segmentation approach by profiling certain subgroups of the tourism market that are defined in advance, the popularity of post-hoc, a posteriori or data-driven segmentation approaches has increased dramatically since its introduction into tourism research in the early Eighties. This paper aims at reviewing data-driven segmentation studies conducted in tourism research with respect to the constructs under study and the methodology used, investigating developments over the past 24 years since the introduction of data-driven segmentation into tourism and providing an outlook on directions of further development.