CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR IN TOURISM. THE CASE OF TOURISTS' BEHAVIOUR REGARDING THE ROMANIAN SEASIDE.

According to Cooper et al. (2005) no two individuals are alike and differences in perceptions, attitudes, images and motivation have an important influence on travel decisions. From this point of view it is important for tourism managers to research and understand the way in which tourists make buying decisions. The tourism industry stakeholders need to act in relation to the tourists' desires and key motivation factors. The present paper focuses on a direct marketing research of the tourists' behaviour regarding the Romanian seaside destination. We investigated the tourist's motives in choosing Romanian seaside and their preferences for the transportation, accommodation and trips arrangements. The tourists' satisfaction levels related with the seaside characteristics were also investigated in our research. Last, but not least we evaluated the main sources of information that tourists took into consideration when choosing Romanian seaside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]