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Kirillova2015 LEE
Kirillova2015 LEE
INTRODUCTION
Pets of all sizes and breeds have become increasingly popular. According to
the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), in 1988, 56%
of American households owned at least one pet as compared with 63% of
American households in 2011–2012, which equals 72.9 million homes (2012).
This enthusiasm can be translated into large sums of money spent each year
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Willingness to Travel With Pets 25
LITERATURE REVIEW
Pet Ownership
The benefits of bonding with companion animals have been discussed in
various academic areas, where the literature has shown a strong positive
association between pet ownership and health promotion. By encouraging
their owners to get involved in outdoor activities and exercise (in the case of
26 K. Kirillova et al.
dog ownership) and by providing feelings of safety and comfort, pets play
important roles in physical health promotion and in the alleviation of anxiety,
loneliness, and depression (Friedmann, 1990). Pet owners show higher par-
ticipation in outdoor activities (Ball, Bauman, Leslie, & Owen, 2001; Brown &
Rhodes, 2006), lower heart rate and blood pressure (Friedmann & Thomas,
1995), less anxiety (Barker & Dawson, 1998; Richeson, 2003), and better
overall cardio fitness (Aiba et al., 2012). While pets in general positively
affect their owners’ health, the differences in this effect exist between cats
and dogs. For example, older dog owners demonstrated better health charac-
teristics than did both older cat owners and older no-pet owners (Enmarker,
Hellzen, Ekker, & Berg, 2012; Rijken & van Beek, 2001). Pet owners also
benefit from increased socialization with their local communities and thus
have lower rates of loneliness (Wood, Giles-Corti, & Bulsara, 2005). With the
recognition of links between pet ownership and health benefits, companion
animals have been used therapeutically for a long time (Benda, 2004) in a
variety of settings, from hospitals and nursing homes to schools and prisons
(Connor & Miller, 2000).
Albert and Bulcroft (1988) found that roles played by pets are related
to the internal structure of the household. Although the majority of pets live
in households with children (Weise, 2012), attachment to a pet is stronger
among never-married, divorced, widowed people, childless couples, and
“empty nesters” (Albert & Bulcroft, 1988). Notably, Carr and Cohen (2009)
found that single dog owners in Australia were more likely to take their pets
on leisure trips than all other socio-demographic groups.
and individual properties welcome pets at check-in with special treats and a
note informing their owners about the hotel’s additional pet services. Loews
hotels also provide well-trained hotel staff, who can walk and take care of
pets (Hansen, 2004). The lodging industry can benefit from setting a pet-
friendly policy since welcoming guests with pets is a direct opportunity to
increase revenue per room and raise profits. Additional pet services may
drive the occupancy rate without engaging in heavy discounting (Boroshok,
2006). Kimpton properties reported that the average stay of a pet-owning
guest is about 2.56 nights compared with 2.1 nights for guests without pets
(Boroshok, 2006), and a Starwood survey showed that 76% of pet owners
would be loyal to a hotel chain if their pets were allowed in hotel rooms
during the trip (Hansen, 2004). Pet-friendliness allows hotel chains to focus
on unique needs of target groups of people and thus to differentiate them-
selves from competitors without much financial investments (Kridler, 2005).
In addition to being a valuable marketing tool and an added convenience for
traveling pet owners, pet-friendliness offers lodging industry the opportunity
to build positive publicity through participation in animal welfare programs
(Brendan, 1998).
Parks, 80% of pet owners think that pets should be allowed in the state park
campgrounds (Lisco & Sauder, 2003). Moreover, if pets were allowed, more
than 30% of pet owners would increase their visits to state parks, and about
40% of pet owners would seek out those campgrounds that allowed pets
(Lisco & Sauder, 2003). Therefore, it appears that love for pets and desire to
spend quality time with them are important motivators to frequent certain
recreational venues.
METHOD
Data Collection
To address the study objectives, this research followed a three-step process.
First, in order to have a better understanding of possible factors affecting
willingness to travel with pets, a pilot study using semi-structured interviews
was conducted with 68 U.S. pet owners. During these interviews, respon-
dents were asked about their perspectives on traveling with pets and the
perceived state of pet tourism market. The respondents were intersected at
veterinary clinics and recreation parks of a Midwestern town of the United
States. The final instrument as described in the following section was devel-
oped partially based on the results of this preliminary inquiry. Second, the
full-scale survey was administered at a recreation park, special events, and
veterinary clinics of the same town. Additionally, a web version of the survey
was posted on the online pet owners’ communities from July 2007 to June
2008. A total of 187 pet owners in United States responded to the survey.
Among the 187 pet owners, 34 respondents were from local parks and veteri-
nary clinics, and 153 were from the online pet owner communities. In order
to ensure that there is no demographic difference between the respondents
from online and offline channels, chi-square tests on demographic vari-
ables of the respondents were conducted. These tests were non-significant,
indicating no apparent differences between on-line and off-line samples.
Due to substantial missing data, 34 unusable responses from online com-
munities were not coded for further analysis resulting in a final sample of
153 responses.
Survey Questionnaire
The survey questionnaire was comprised of the following sections: (1) con-
sumers’ overall perceptions of traveling with pets; (2) consumers’ satisfaction
with existing pet-related services provided by hospitality and tourism
operations; (3) consumers’ willingness to travel with pets; and (4) socio-
demographic and trip characteristics of consumers traveling with pets.
Because scholarly literature on the topic is scarce, the instrument to
assess overall consumers’ perceptions of traveling with pets was derived
30 K. Kirillova et al.
based on the Starwood telephone survey with dog owners and the
2007 Kimpton Hotels report (items 2–4, 6, 7, 11–16), the preliminary study
data (items 5, 8–10), and the study conducted by the Idaho Department of
Parks and Recreation in 2004 about the role of pet companionship in human
recreation (items 1, 17, 18). The resulting scale was comprised of 18 state-
ments in which respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement
on 5-point Likert-type scale. The scales to measure pet owners’ satisfaction
with existing pet-related hospitality and tourism services was adopted from
the 2007 report by Dogfriendly.com and consisted of eight statements in
which respondents were asked to indicate their level of satisfaction on 5-
point Likert-type scale. With the same scale calibration, willingness to travel
with pets was measured by “I am willing to take my pets on a leisure trip in
a year.”
A three-person expert panel evaluated construct validity of the instru-
ment. Two academics with extensive tourism industry experience and
scholarly expertise and one with professional and academic expertise in
lodging management approved the final instrument. Face validity was
assessed during a focus group with pet owners, after which slight modifi-
cations to wording were made. Reliability of the scales was verified with
Cronbach alphas of 0.77 for the overall perceptions scale and 0.85 for the
satisfaction scale (Nunnally, 1967). The questionnaire concluded with ques-
tions pertaining to a number of pets owned, number of trips taken with
pets, accommodation and transportation options utilized, length of stay,
additional pet fees, information channels used while planning trips, and
socio-demographic characteristics.
Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages were utilized to exam-
ine the socio-demographic characteristics and travel behavior of pet owners.
Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotations was implemented
to investigate dimensionality of both constructs: overall perceptions of
traveling with pets and satisfaction with existing pet-related hospitality and
tourism services. Factors were considered significant and retained only if they
had an eigenvalue equal to or greater than 1 and factor loadings of greater
than 0.40. Regression analysis was adopted to test the relative importance
of the identified factors in relation to pet owners’ willingness to travel with
their pets. After investigating the relationship between the identified factors
and willingness to travel with pets, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)
with Tukey’s post hoc tests were conducted to test if socio-demographic
variables affect the identified factors, satisfaction, and willingness to travel
with pets.
Willingness to Travel With Pets 31
RESULTS
Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Travel Behavior
The socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents are shown in
Table 1.
Table 2 summarizes respondents’ trip characteristics. According to the
results, more than 80% of the pet owners in the sample took their pets on a
leisure trip and showed a strong willingness to travel with their pets again.
Additionally, pet owners who already had taken their pets on leisure travel
were more likely to be repeat customers, since more than 80% have traveled
with their pets at least twice in the last 2 years and pet owners who traveled
with their pets more than 10 times accounted for over 20% of the respon-
dents. When pet owners traveled with pets, they usually stayed overnight
either at commercial lodging facilities like a hotel and motel or at the res-
idence of friends or family. These findings indicate that if lodging industry
welcomes these consumers with well-established pet-friendly policies, more
pet owners would consider staying at commercial accommodations when
they plan to travel with pets, and destinations can benefit from this additional
expenditure.
32
No accommodation 13 10.5
20 nights or more 3 2.4
Other 5 4.0
∗ ∗
Transportation Car 118 95.2 Companionship Children 17 13.8
Air 13 10.5 Spouse 76 61.3
Bus 2 1.6 Parents 23 18.5
Train 1 0.8 Relatives 17 13.7
Ship 1 0.8 Friends 15 12.1
Other 5 4.0 No Companion 12 9.7
∗
Information TV/Newspaper 10 8.1 Expenditure Less than $10 38 34.2
channel Vet clinic 11 8.9 $10–$30 21 18.9
Fellow pet owners 28 22.8 $30–$50 16 14.4
Travel agency 5 4.1 $50–$100 18 16.2
Websites 64 520 $100–$300 13 11.7
Other 33 26.8 More than $300 5 4.5
a
Sample size decreased because of missing data.
∗
Allowed multiple responses.
Willingness to Travel With Pets 33
Perception Mean SD
with their pets (M = 4.89). When they travel without pets, they worry (M =
4.21) and always think about them (M = 4.68). Logistic issues also appear
to be of significance. A large number of pet owners believe that price of
boarding services is not an important factor to consider (M = 1.94) when
they are away from pets during a trip. This could explain the finding that
pet owners prefer to find some place they can trust with their pets’ care.
In addition, pet owners would cancel or change the trip schedule if they are
not able to provide good care for their pets during the trip (M = 4.46), and
they would refuse to stay longer than scheduled if they are not traveling with
pets (M = 3.64). This might be interpreted to mean that pet owners would
extend their stay at a destination if the industry addresses the needs of pet
owners. This finding has important implications for industry practitioners:
the less guests feel guilty about leaving their pets behind, the more nights
Willingness to Travel With Pets 35
they are willing to spend at a destination, which translated into more money
expended within this destination.
Pet owners indicated that well-established pet policies can motivate
them to go on a leisure trip (M = 4.25) and encourage them to be loyal
towards a hotel chain that offers great services for both customers and their
pets (M = 4.48). For economic issues, pet owners reported a strong willing-
ness to pay more for their pets if owners could share leisure activities their
pets (M = 4.06), and the respondents felt that the cost incurred by taking
their pets on a trip was similar with the boarding facility cost (M = 3.11).
Pet owners also believe that traveling with pets enhances their overall travel
experience (M = 4.26) and makes them feel happy (M = 4.44), which might
encourage these consumers to take pets on a leisure trip in a year (M =
4.32). Overall, emotional attachment appears to be important in pet own-
ers’ decision-making to take pets on leisure trips. Results showed strong pet
owners’ willingness to pay more money than they pay for boarding if the
hospitality and tourism industry is prepared to care for their pets. Combined
with other aspects, logistic issues appear to be a highly influential consider-
ation when pet owners decide to travel with pets. Results indicate that pet
owners might extend their stay if their pets are well treated during travel.
Factors F1 F2 F3
with KMO of 0.846. When two cross-loaded items were eliminated, the anal-
ysis finalized a unifactorial solution explaining 56.26% of variance with KMO
of 0.836. The Cronbach alpha for the factor was 0.84.
While pet owners exhibit increased interest in traveling with pets, little atten-
tion has been given to this market segment as existing research from the
consumer perspective is limited. This study contributes to a deeper under-
standing of pet owners’ perceptions of pet-friendly services in the United
States and their willingness to travel with pets. The study sought to con-
tribute to the tourism literature by highlighting socio-demographic profiles
of traveling pet owners in the United States, their perceptions of existing
pet-friendly services, and factors influencing willingness to travel with pets.
Despite the exploratory nature of the present study, the findings shed some
light on the pet-friendly tourism. The study made the first attempt to add to
the literature about pet tourism by identifying the factors and their contribu-
tion to pet owners’ willingness to travel with pets. The study contributes to
the existing body of knowledge in tourism by developing initial empirical
insights into pet-friendly travel, serving as a starting point for more directed
studies needed in the future.
Pet owners feel deeply connected to their pets and are willing to over-
come powerful constraints in order to travel with their animals. As this
research has demonstrated, this is a valid notion regardless pet owners’
gender, age, income level, or marital status. Thus, the importance of this
emotional component in tourists’ satisfaction and overall tourism experience
Willingness to Travel With Pets 39
reported that websites are the major source of information to aid with trip
arrangements, travel agencies and hotels might include more comprehensive
information on their websites such as featured pet-friendly lodging, leisure
activities, airlines, and transportation services. Moreover, this approach may
push pet-friendly tourism and hospitality businesses to form strategic part-
nerships and alliances to provide better services to travelers with pets while
capitalizing on this market segment.
With the benefits of catering to travelers with pets, before deciding to
implement any pet-friendly strategy, a hospitality enterprise should be also
aware of possible negative issues arising from such policies. For example,
many hotel and restaurant guests do not expect to see animals in these public
areas and may be deferred by pet-friendly rules. They may feel unsafe in the
presence of animals and could even view this very presence as unsanitary
and disrespectful. Another issue is related to allergies when some guests
cannot physically tolerate to be near furry animals. In such cases, not only
do pet-friendly policies present threats to some guests’ health but hotels, for
instance, need to clean pet-friendly rooms with extra care to eliminate all
allergen, which may incur extra costs. Initiating pet-friendly policies presents
potential issues for housekeeping departments in hotels. Pet-friendly rooms
require additional cleaning and, in the case of some dogs, may be dangerous
to enter. Therefore, hospitality operations willing to implement pet-friendly
strategies may need to balance needs and wants of both pet owners and non-
pet lovers. One approach undertaken by many hotels in the United States
(e.g., Loews) involves devoting separate floors in a hotel to guests with pets.
In a restaurant, customers with pets can be accommodated on a patio or
other outside sitting areas. Such an approach may appeal to not only diners
with pets but also to other diners who like animals and perceive this aspect
to be a part of a dining experience.
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