This chapter presents an introductory discussion on the dimensions of psychology and on the consumer psychology of tourism, hospitality and leisure, and concludes by presenting an overview of the book.

In 1998, evidence was provided suggesting that an apparent 15% decline in domestic travel estimated from the Canadian Travel Surveys (CTS) of 1994, 1996, and 1997 was possibly misleading. This decline could actually be the result of methodological changes in the survey rather than a change in travel behaviour. Here, realistic assumptions and a simple computational method are utilized to demonstrate that change in bias may account for the drop in estimated trips. The analysis depends on a trip recall salience scale. Use of this scale allows correction for an under-reporting bias arising from reduced trip recall rates for low-salience trips. When the 1996 and 1997 CTS data are corrected, estimates of change in total trips are near zero. This finding corresponds to perceptions within the tourism industry. The bias correction methodology is applicable to other large surveys involving recall of past behaviour in which multiple events are recalled.

In the tourism literature the phenomenon of the 'long-term, budget' traveller has been conceptualized as a distinctive form of escape from mainstream 'institutionalized' tourism flows. A common characteristic of studies focusing on this market has been the tendency to treat these travellers as a homogeneous consumer group. In Australia and New Zealand these travellers are commonly referred to as the 'backpacker' market. Our case study reveals heterogeneity within the backpacker markets in the Nelson and Marlborough regions of New Zealand. Our discussion of 'traditional long-term travellers' and 'mainstream' backpacker groups examines the diversity of underlying values influencing travel motivations and their respective forms of consumer behaviour. This paper contextualizes the discussion with respect to historical perspectives and the dynamics of associated industry development. We argue that the cultural context of globalization raises important implications for the study of travel motivations within this market.

This chapter presents an overview of the space tourism industry and discusses the categories of space tourism, the historical and cultural background to space tourism, the space tourism experience, problems associated with space tourism, the potential market for space tourism, and the future of this tourism subsector.

This paper argues that tourist behaviour research should be based on explicit hypotheses or, even better, on a system of interconnected relationships (a 'model'). The models are subject to empirical testing to assess their explanatory and predictive capabilities. As in any other sub-field of behavioural science, a sample of tourists used for model testing is often heterogeneous in terms of variable values and association between variables. Therefore, the results gained for bivariate or multivariate relations may be artefacts due to spurious correlations. Heterogeneity is found to appear on different levels of tourist behaviour model building. It is easier to control if there are explicit assumptions about moderator variables. However, it becomes particularly troublesome if the hypothesized cause-effect relationships are subject to variation over an unknown structure of sub-groups. Examples are discussed to portray these cases.