Allocentric: Of a minority of tourists - adventurous, outgoing, self-confident, independent, needing little tourist infrastructure. Enjoys high contact with locals.

Midcentric: Of the majority of tourists - displaying a mix of allocentric and psychcentric characteristics. Prefers to be cushioned from contact with locals.

Psychocentric: Of a minority of tourists - preferring 'away' to be like 'home'; requiring appropriate tourism infrastructure.

What kind of tourist are you?

Seems like a weird way to segment tourists. Never heard of tourist segmentation who made this model?

These are industry terms; jargon, if you will. They're based on psychographic data that was originally plotted by a fellow named Plog; it's known as the Plog Spectrum.

It's used to explain why people are interested in different sorts of tourism attractions and destinations.

I did a search for "Plog spectrum" and it came up empty???

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Try the search without quotations or as "Plog model".

well, plog model still doesn't give any significant results and if I just type plog I get too many results to filter true it. It just seems kinda odd that all travellers can be divided into 3 categories. Thus, I would like to see some proof where you got these names.

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No, they caught my interest and I'm sharing them with you. If you don't find them interesting, then feel free to move on. I'm not going to bother referencing books to you or pulling up plots; it's a waste of time. You may have heard of The Activation Model of Travel Personality; this is based upon Plog's model.

However, I will make one more attempt to lay things out for you. Plog's model creates a pretty standard bell curve when the data is plotted.

http://thesoni.com/Intelligence1.jpg

On the left side, you can find Psychocentric tourists. They need the most service and require being sold a vacation; they're contented to be at home. These are the sorts of people that like to have McDonald's when they go to a new country. Then come the Near Psychocentric tourists, they are moving towards the Midcentric attitude towards travel; visiting friends and relatives are often the only reason that they travel. The model them moves into Midcentric tourists, these people travel for a break in their routine and are unlikely to choose any destination that moves them out of their comfort zone or removes an amenity from their lifestyle. It then slips into Near Allocentric, these people want a new experience; they don't mind risk and enjoy slipping outside of the comforts of day-to-day life. Plog ends the model with the Allocentric, these people are the innovators of travel; they don't fear trying new things or exploring new places. It's an interesting model.

The model is used to market towards different tourists; it's simply another tool that rests within the realm of tourism marketing.

Which of the three categories do you fit into?

As you have no factual proof I'll just assume that this is an own observation you made and are trying to see if you are right.

To answer you question, I don't fit any of the three categories you named.

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Where is your ideal vacation spot and what would you do there? From that information, I can estimate where you fit on the model.

If you're truly dieing for a reference:

Stanley C. Plog, "Why destination areas rise and fall in popularity." Paper presented to the Travel Research Association Southern California Chapter, Los Angeles, CA, Cotober, 1972.

N. Nickerson, and G. Ellis, "Traveler types and activation theory: A comparison of two models," Journal of Travel Research 29 (1991), pp. 26-31.

Are you going to rush out and check my facts? I hope you do; I did waste the time to properly reference this model to you.

Well, the "paper" by Mr. Plog...I'll doubt i'll be able to find that anywhere and I'm wondering where you found it. but that book about Traveller types I might check out. Though I doubt I'll find it in Belgium... Meh

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