A travel destination offers a form of novelty to the traveler since it can provide experiences that are not of the everyday variety. Therefore, a search for novelty is important as a motivation factor when planning leisure trips and vacation activities and to identify travel market segments. This study aimed to examine the differences in demographic characteristics, travel style, and preferred food-related activities in accordance with the level of tourists’ novelty seeking. This study investigated potential tourists using a self-administered questionnaire survey, which resulted in 300 usable questionnaires. The respondents of this study were classified into two groups according to their level of novelty seeking: Active novelty-seeking group and Passive novelty-seeking group. These two groups were significantly different with respect to demographic characteristics, travel style, and preference of food-related-activity experience. The results show that the Active noveltyseeking group tended to have a higher proportion of females and specialized jobs, a higher level of monthly income and education, more frequent travel, and preference for food-related activity experience than other groups. The result of this study will be helpful for the tourist industry, which needs to develop culinary and food-related experience tour programs and travel market segments.

• 이인옥(경희대학교 대학원) | In-Ok Lee
• 김태희(경희대학교 호텔관광대학) | Tae-Hee Kim Corresponding author