MARKET SEGMENTATION STRATEGY AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: AN EXPLORATION STUDY ON "SINGLE" TOURISM SECTOR IN SAO PAULO CITY

This article is the result of a survey conducted with four companies of the tourism sector ( agencies and operators) from Sao Paulo, who perform special travel programs for the segment of people traveling alone. According exploratory and qualitative nature, the main focus of the research was to assess the perception of the leaders of these companies, there competitive advantage by specializing in the needs and desires of a particular market segment. We sought to explore in the interviews and survey data from the companies, the tourist profile "single", their motivation and expectations, as well as the strategy and the activities conducted by the company to serve them. It found that companies who have chosen to target your market for tourism "single" usually did so by realizing the existence of a latent niche to be exploited, but only the company that adopts market concentration in this segment obtains competitive advantage.