Tourism service providers are confronted with a number of challenging market developments, including (1) increasing fragmentation of markets - increasing granularity of groups of customers, (2) from one-to-one communication to community communication (easy multiplication of opinions and the like), (3) consumer as (invisible) bearer of information, (4) loss of control of communication content, just to name a few. Hence, they need ever better insights into how customers make decision and against which alternatives one is competing. In turn, there is a need for a more in-depth discussion of decision making processes, not just stimuli-response analyses. This paper proposes a process-focused model of tourist decision making and brings forward a possible conceptualization based on existing and validated models. Those approaches include MOA (motivation-opportunity-ability) theory, social network theory, economic utility theory. Based on this conceptualization, a number of possible research avenues are proposed.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Publisher
SAGE
Event Title
64th International Asociation of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST) Congress