Cave Tourism: Tourists' Characteristics, Motivations to Visit, and the Segmentation of Their Behavior

Abstract Geotourism is one among many types of ecotourism or nature tourism. Cave tourism within geotourism has gained popularity in Korea. The study's objectives include cave tourists' characteristics, segmenting them according to motivation factors, and finally identifying who they are. The sample population for this research consisted of tourists who have visited the Hwansun Cave in Samchuk City. Among a total of 547 questionnaires distributed, 537 questionnaires were used for further data analyses. On the basis of cluster analysis using the motivation factors, cluster 1 was named an "escape-seeking group", cluster 2 was termed a "knowledge- and novelty-seeking group", cluster 3 was called a "novelty-seeking group" and cluster 4 was termed a "socialization group". Differences in socio-demographic variables, beliefs about cave tourism resources, preferred cave tourism products, satisfaction with this tour, willingness to participate in another cave tour and belief in the value of cave tourism resources were found among the four clusters. The study's findings were expected to be helpful in understanding who they are. Keywords: geotourism cave tourismmotivation Acknowledgement This work is supported by the Korean Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD) (KRF-20051-041-B00818) Additional informationNotes on contributorsSamuel Seongseop Kim *E-mail: sskim@sejong.ac.kr