Consumer Behavior in the Wake of the

Consumer Behavior In the wake of the London 2012 Olympics, discount airliner Easyjet recorded a boost in its business. The company reported that demand for flights from London was strong after the Games, boosting profit expectations for the year from £280m-£300m to £310m-£320m (BBC, 2012). The company noted several factors that contributed to the boost, many of which relate to the concept of consumer behaviour. For example, the article cites that flights out of London increased to beach markets in particular.

It also noted that there were fewer delays at London airports during the summer. Hoyer and Macinnis (2009, p.3) define consumer behaviour as "The totality of consumers' decisions with respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, time and ideas by human decision-making units (over time)." This definition highlights that all consumer purchase decisions are comprised of a number of different inputs.

Early research on consumer behaviour was the most successful in identifying the core elements of consumer behaviour, while later research appears to focus on specific, acute problems that cannot be extrapolated to other industries. Some of the basic literature therefore provides unique insight into the possible reasons for the change in buying patterns for vacations among Londoners after the Olympics in the summer of 2012. Moutinho (1993) discusses the determinants of behaviour with respect to tourism. In particular, he notes the power of reference group influences.

The Easyjet report hints at the possibility that Londoners had delayed their summer vacations until after the Olympics, creating an excess of demand over expectations in the post-Olympic period. Easyjet may not have noticed a change in demand during the Olympics because of Olympic-specific demand. For Londoners, however, here was a collective decision to delay vacations until after the Olympics.

Some may have left to avoid the Games, but it is possible that people's reference groups were making the decision to be in London for the Games, and then vacation afterwards. The result would have been a large number of consumers making this choice. Tourist demand modeling, as Moutinho notes, can help to understand demand patterns. While Easyjet's own modeling failed to predict the upsurge in demand, that only implies imperfect modeling.

Consumer behavior models should incorporate all relevant information, so studies should have included travel patterns in Vancouver, Sydney or Salt Lake following their respective Olympic Games. Also, consumer behavior studies recently have shown that behavior can be predicted by understanding web search patterns (Goel et al., 2010). This would have indicated that either London consumers were investigating later vacations, that foreigners visiting the Olympics were planning to stay in the UK and then leave later, or both.

It is more likely that Easyjet based its forecasts on ideas about the ritual aspects of consumer behavior. Rook (1985) discusses the role that rituals play in making purchase decisions. Easyjet likely assumed that vacation travel patterns would be similar to those of previous years, since vacation itself is ritual for many consumers, taking place at the same time each year and going to the same destinations. The company failed to recognize the disruption that the Olympics would have on the ritualistic vacation habits of Londoners.

However, when the ritual aspect is extended to the online searching notes in Goel et al., Easyjet should have realized that the travel purchase decision typically involves a significant amount of online research. For example, consumers would likely have search Easyjet's website for late August flights (without purchasing) to a greater extent than in other years. A change in search patterns over the usual would have allowed Easyjet to forecast the change in demand at least a few months in demand.

Perhaps it was aware of the changes, but chose to see the changes as a pleasant surprise that would improve late season load factors. Alternately, the complexity of predicting consumer demand patterns in multichannel multimedia environment might have made such predictions more difficult (Dholakia et al., 2010). Another factor that could have contributed to the increase in sales was the prevailing mood of Londoners following the Games. Gardner (1985) notes that mood has a strong influence on buying behavior.

If Londoners were in a good mood following the Games, they might have felt more enthusiastic about keeping the good times rolling, by taking impromptu vacations. This travel would likely have emphasized discount airlines if the purchase decision was made at the last minute, and Easyjet might not have been able to predict this type of purchase. Consumer behavior is the study of the different factors that go into a purchase decision. Easyjet experienced an unexpected boost in.