Portuguese charter tourists to long-haul destinations: a travel motive segmentation

This article presents an empirical study of tourist segmentation based on motivations. The present study, exploratory by nature, aims to provide a deeper insight into profiles of Portuguese tourists traveling to Latin American and African destinations. The research was conducted with 1,097 tourists traveling on Air Luxor to long-haul destinations, by means of factor-cluster analysis, followed by a discriminant and a homals analysis. Three market segments were found: adventure, leisure, and social tourism. The research reveals that each of these segments presents a different profile in terms of motivations and in terms of vacation patterns. However, in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, the differences are not so evident. The managerial implications of these findings are highlighted.