SEGMENTING THE CRUISE MARKET: AN APPLICATION OF MULTIPLE CORRESPONDENCE ANALYSIS

The cruise line industry is one of the fastest growing travel sectors, and an industry with a high rate of repeat business. This study contributes to the understanding of potential repeat visitors by segmenting cruise tourists based upon their intent to cruise in the future. The purpose of this research note is to reflect on the segmentation method applied. Respondents were asked to respond to questions about their intentions to cruise in the future, and were able to answer yes, no, or not sure, thus making a traditional factor-cluster approach using principal components analysis (or similar) not feasible. This study uses a two step method that combines Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) with a k-means cluster analysis, to segment the sample based on responses to five questions about future cruising intentions.