An analysis of social factors effecting consumers' purchasing behaviour in terms of travel agencies

Consumer behaviour investigates how individuals, groups and organisations benefit from products and services to address their needs, how they make their decisions to purchase and what kind of behaviour they show after the purchase. The analysis of consumer behaviour is important to develop and implement effective market strategies for institutions and organisations which operate or will operate in the market and the analysis consumer behaviour also plays an important role in determining demands and needs. Measuring consumer behaviour is a process which is quite comprehensive and differs from person to person. In order for these differences to be able to determined, the factors that effect consumers' purchasing behaviour need to be analysed. One of the factors that effects consumers' purchasing behaviour is the socio-cultural (social) factors. In this study, a survey was conducted to determine the effects of social factors on customers of travel agents. A survey was conducted on 1009 customers of 50 Group A travel agents in Konya province in collaboration with The Association of Turkish Travel Agencies Konya Province and District Affiliated Regional Executive Board. The data obtained from this study were analysed using statistical software package and frequency distributions were calculated and Chi-Squared test was applied to measure the relationship between variables. According to the results of this study meaningful differences have been detected between the social factors (family, reference groups, social class, culture and sub-culture) and kinds of products/services which consumers buy from travel agents, the annual number of products/services which consumers buy, reasons for choosing travel agencies and sources of information that influence the choice of a travel agencies.