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When the first edition of this book appeared in 1997 it contained a chapter on segmenting city tourists by their vacation styles. While the conceptual foundations did not change much the following decade has seen noticeable progress regarding tourist researchers’ command of analytical methodology and computing instruments. This chapter takes account of the recent developments and moulds them into a digestible format for managers and students alike. Its overall purpose is to provide a template of working steps to cope with psychographically and behaviourally heterogeneous city tourists.

By applying the uncommon method of a travel panel study lasting for one complete year it was intended to learn more and in a more appropriate way about the planning process of vacation travelling. The planning process was decomposed into nine primary and secondary decision elements. Decisions and changes thereof were reported by panel members every four to five weeks together with the underlying information sources used. Results on the sub-decisions and their characteristics are informative; however reveal the conceptual difficulties and weaknesses of this methodology. Information usage patterns deliver partly acknowledged insights and partly contrasting results especially with respect to prior knowledge and web sources.

Information utility has become a major issue in consumer research since providing useful and relevant information is a key factor for the success of destination marketing organisations (DMO). This study compared six different approaches for measuring perceived utility (importance) of information elements on city tourism (CTO) organization websites: group discussion, rating, partial ranking, choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC), adaptive conjoint analysis (ACA) and maximum difference method (MaxDiff). Results showed that simple, compositional methods achieved a more consistent weight pattern compared to the conjoint approaches. The degree of complexity and level of abstraction seem to be responsible for the biases occurring in these techniques. On the other hand, the quality and content of CTO web sites vary to a large extent. Despite different weighting schemes for eight different content areas, by and large, the best and worst web sites remain the same.

Travelling by ship is an increasingly popular way to pass ones holidays reflected by increasing passenger numbers in the cruise industry. This does not just hold for maritime but also for river cruise lines. Increasingly young travellers who search for trip information online are attracted by this sort of holiday. Thus this paper examines the river cruise information provided online and analyzes the content provided by operators offering tours along the river Danube. Additionally an on board information system is evaluated by both, tour operators and passengers. The survey among the passengers shows that there is a strong willingness to use the information service, primarily determined by the usefulness and ease of use of the system. In summary, this paper provides a comprehensive dual view of operators and customers with respect to river cruise information systems.