Typologising nature-based tourists by activity—Theoretical and practical implications

The purpose of the current inquiry was to develop a typology of nature tourists based on trip activities. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire at two nature-based attractions located in Northern Norway. The results indicated that the trip activity segmentation criterion enabled the classification of nature-based tourists into three clusters: “culture and pleasure activity oriented”, “nature activity oriented”, and “low activity oriented”. The main finding was that while other trip motivations distinguished the “nature activity oriented” segment from the other two in the current study, “nature” as a trip motivation, surprisingly, did not. Additionally, there were only minor significant differences between the clusters in terms of demographic and trip features. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.