What is independent travel?

People usually divide group tourists and individual tourists according to whether they need to travel through travel agencies and other travel agencies. However, with the development of tourism service agencies and the continuous enrichment of tourism intermediary services, the way people arrange their own travel has changed a lot. In the individual market, there is a group that shows the same characteristics and is obviously different from the general individual. People call the tourism behavior of this group self-help tourism.

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Self-help tourism is a fashionable way of tourism, which can be manifested as: choosing and arranging tourism activities completely independently with the goal of "publicizing personality, being close to nature and relaxing body and mind".

And there is no full tour guide. Self-help tourism has the following three obvious characteristics in tourism organization and tourism purpose:

The first is the autonomy of tourism activities, including the determination of tourism destination and itinerary, the choice of transportation mode and accommodation standard, and the arrangement of sightseeing projects. At the same time, the self-help tour also has great flexibility, and the itinerary can be temporarily adjusted or changed according to personal preferences during the trip;

Secondly, the main tourism purposes are leisure, vacation, entertainment, fitness, knowledge, exploration and meeting personal special interests.

Thirdly, without a tour leader or tour guide, all the tourism activities during the trip need to be taken care of by the tourists themselves. Therefore, tourists must have certain quality and travel experience while having autonomy.

As can be seen from the above definition, the two concepts of self-help travel and individual travel have great overlap, overlap and obvious differences. From the perspective of tourism organizations, both of them design their own tourist routes and arrange their own corresponding tourism activities, but self-help tours do not exclude booking through intermediaries including travel agencies (especially transportation and accommodation facilities). However, from the perspective of tourism purposes, the general individual's tourism purposes cover a wide range, while the self-help tour focuses more on pure tourism or leisure and entertainment purposes, excluding official business, business and conference tourism and tourism activities arranged by the reception unit. However, leisure and entertainment tourism activities arranged by oneself at the destination of business trip or on the way should also be regarded as self-help tourism.

(B) the types of self-help tourism

At present, there are many types of self-help tourism, which can be classified according to the standards of transportation mode, tourism purpose, tourism distance, consumption level and tourism activity content. This paper mainly classifies according to the mode of transportation and the purpose of tourism.

According to the mode of transportation, it can be divided into: go on road trip, cycling tour, hiking tour, etc.

According to the purpose of tourism, it can be divided into two categories: leisure and holiday self-help tours and professional self-help tours. Professional self-help tours include self-help tours for learning knowledge, self-help tours for extreme exploration and self-help tours with special interests (photography, mountaineering, skiing, golf, etc.). ) and so on.

(C) the characteristics of self-help tourism

Self-help tourists pursue autonomy in tourism, or publicize their personality or relax; Compared with the overall tourism market, their travel rate is higher, and tourism has become an indispensable element in their lives; Most of them come from economically developed areas, especially large and medium-sized cities, and they are highly educated. During their travels, they showed the following characteristics:

1. There are obvious differences in the choice of tourist destinations between the two types of self-help tourists.

Leisure and self-help tourists are mostly families, or flow to holiday-oriented tourist destinations represented by the seaside, or flow to scenic spots around the city. For Zhou Bianyou, self-driving tour is a popular mode of transportation. Professional self-help tourists pursue newly developed or even undeveloped tourist destinations, especially in the western region. They tend to avoid heat in the choice of tourist destinations and travel time, or avoid tourist hotspots, or avoid their tourist peaks and off-season hotspots to enjoy unusual scenery. In short, the crowded scene is the last thing they want to see, which objectively plays a role in alleviating the contradiction between supply and demand.

2. Self-help tourists have a high degree of participation and belong to in-depth tourism.

Because they need to arrange everything by themselves, self-help tourists usually make full preparations before going out: collect relevant information such as tourism resources, local customs, design routes, choose vehicles, inquire about flights and itineraries, find corresponding accommodation facilities according to the budget, and book air tickets. For self-driving and cycling tourists, the preparation of necessary equipment and road information is even more essential. This kind of preparation can make tourists understand the tourist destination more comprehensively, not just the situation of tourist attractions (spots).

In the process of traveling, self-help tourists are closer to the local people's life in terms of food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment, and can more truly contact with local residents, feel the local nature, history, customs and social customs, and have a higher degree of participation. At the same time, you can have a deep understanding of a certain aspect or a certain theme of the destination according to your own preferences. However, participating in regular tour groups always seems to be far away from the locals. Tourists basically flow between designated hotels, designated restaurants and designated shops that specialize in receiving tourists. Even the "folk-custom" displays such as folk songs and dances and wedding customs are often very performative, and even turn into disguised charging items, which can easily prejudice tourists and host residents and run counter to the purpose of promoting exchanges and understanding in tourism.

3. Compared with group tours, self-help tours are smaller in scale, and people with similar interests are more likely to reach an agreement; Under the same specifications and standards, it costs more than participating in the tour, which reflects the special consumption psychology: on the one hand, it is intoxicated with basic elements such as careful calculation and bargaining, especially accommodation and local transportation, but it shows good purchasing power for some products with greater price elasticity, and especially loves "characteristics", such as special tourism projects, unique handicrafts and local cuisine. In addition, although self-help tourists have made great efforts in the process of traveling, their satisfaction is still high, and accordingly, there are more and more complaints about travel agencies. Of course, this has little to do with complaints from self-help tourists.