And for the last type in Plog’s Theory of Consumer Behavior is Allocentric. What is Allocentric tourist ? The allocentric type derives from the root ‘allo’ meaning ‘varied in form’. These individuals are adventurous and motivated to travel / discover new destinations, who seeks a new experiences and also adventure in variety of activities. Widely opposite with psycocentric that mostly shut themself for new experiences, this type of tourist or people are most outgoing and self-confident behavior. An allocentric person prefers to fly and to explore new and explore unusual areas before other guys do so. Allocentris enjoy meeting people with foreign, different culture, countries and other else.
Ussually this kind of person is want have a good hotels and also foods, their will not ask for modern or chain-type hotels. An allocentric person is devided into two, tourist who travel theirselves without tour travel agent and tourist who travel with travel agent. Tourist who travel themselves alone without tour package, where they like to explore a place that never been entry by people commonly. But for another type of tourist is they want to be practice, therefore they use tour package, the need basics thing, that is transportation also accomodation. They won’t commited to a structured area, they rather have a freedom to explore an area, make their own arrangements, choose a variety of tourist activities and attractions.
. Different with psycosentric person who non adventourus but more consrvative, seeking about safety and often to do the same thing and go to the same place where they can relax and have good food in family restaurant, whether allocentric person, rarely return to the same place twice, hence their market research label 'wanderers'. In addition, allocentric people also like to take a risk.
Plog’s modelfurther indicated that destinations exhibit characteristics similar to those of their visitors. For examples, in 2001 he proposed Nepal and Tibet as examples of Allocentric destinations ( which he renamed “Venturer“ ). At that time, Orlando and Myrtle Beach fel at the psychocentric end of his spectrum ( redubbed “dependable”). Plog’s model has attracted considerable interest through the years. It is regulary referenced in tourism research, it is included in virtually every tourism textbook, and his terms allocentric and psychocentric have become standard lingo in the field.
Meanwhile , there spurred numerous critics who have questioned aspects of its real-world applicability, which are :
● While compelling as a theory, the concept has been subject to little independent empirical verification.
● The concept fails to account for the fact that tourists travel with different motivations on different occasions. For example, a vacationer may take a winter ski vacation to an allocentric destination, followed later in the year by a main holiday to a psychocentric destination.
● While travelers may be allocentric in nature, financial or other factors may cause them to demonstrate mid-centric or near-psychocentric travel patterns.
● People are complex, and it may not be possible to place travelers in a "single simple category."
● The theory was designed for U.S.-based travelers and does not work well for other nationalities.
● While Plog noted that with travel experience people are likely to become more allocentric, it has been countered that it would be more likely that travel to unfamiliar places would force travelers further into their shells.
● Finally, while the model presents an interesting concept, it "neither ... predicts nor explains a large percentage of all tourism behavior," and is thus impractical for use by tourism marketers.