Targeting the young criusers market: Motivations and behavioural intentions

The recent breakthrough change in the profile of cruisers, which are becoming younger respect to the past, imposes a deeper understanding of the new generations of customers. Nonetheless, despite the wide range of prior contributions on cruise tourism, both motivations to cruise and behavioural intentions of young people have been neglected by extant literature. The manuscript aims to advance knowledge on young people motivations to cruise and their behavioural intentions. First, a cruising motivation scale for young cruisers is proposed, and, then, the effects of motivations on behavioural intentions are investigated, providing implications both for scholars and practitioners. The paper analyses the motivations of 315 actual and potential Italian cruisers by administering an on-line structured questionnaire via Facebook. For the aim of the study, young people motivation factors are identified by running an exploratory factor analysis, while the impact of motivations to cruise on behavioural intentions is estimated by performing ordered logistic regression. The outcomes provide insights for cruise lines, when targeting this segment via tailor-made and effective marketing strategies.