How Can Rail Use for Leisure and Tourism Be Promoted? Using Leisure and Mobility Orientations to Segment Swiss Railway Customers

Lisa Dang and Widar von Arx
Additional contact information
Lisa Dang: Institute for Tourism and Mobility ITM—Mobility Competence Centre, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Rösslimatte 48, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland
Widar von Arx: Institute for Tourism and Mobility ITM—Mobility Competence Centre, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Rösslimatte 48, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: This study aims to explore how customer segments are characterised by leisure and mobility orientations. By means of a survey, Swiss rail customers’ socioeconomic and trip profiles as well as attitudes towards taking the rail in their leisure time were collected. Respondents were free to take part in the survey by telephone or online, resulting in 1235 full interviews. A principal component analysis followed by segmentation through cluster analysis was conducted to derive their socio-economic and trip profiles and collect data on their attitudes towards using rail in their leisure time. Five railway customer segments were established, each demonstrating typical leisure orientations and specific attitudes towards the use of rail in leisure time and on tourist trips. This paper contributes to understanding the salient preferences of each segment and provides transport companies with clear indications for developing market-oriented offerings.

Keywords: customer segmentation; leisure mobility; tourist travel; leisure orientations; mobility orientations; public transport; Swiss railway (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5813/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5813/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:5813-:d:559709

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().