1. Why do travelers change their trip?
Effects of individual, context, and information factors
Yeongbae Choe
National Laboratory of Tourism & eCommerce
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
ENTER 2014 Research Track
Slide Number 1

2. Background
• Travel has unique characteristics
– involves many ‘sub-decisions’ (e.g., destination, accommodation, restaurant)
– occurs continuously from the early stage of deciding “where to go” through
to “what are we going to do now” and beyond
– is influenced by risks associated with uncertainties of outcomes
• Situational factors exert considerable influence on a constructed
travel plan, which in turn, creates potentially spontaneous
decisions
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Slide Number 2

3. Problem Definition
• General ‘Consumer Decision Model’ (e.g. a funnel metaphor)
does not capture a trip’s complexity
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travelers are less rational than previously claimed,
information search is less intensive and more incidental,
situational contexts (e.g. travel party, time) are important,
and travelers decisions continue throughout all stages of trip
• Travelers’ decision-making process is getting much more complex
– B/O recent advanced technology, changes in the information ecosystem
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Slide Number 3

4. Research Objectives
• The objective of this study
– to extend traditional theoretical approaches to travelers’ decision-making to
reflect spontaneous travel behaviors
– by incorporating information, context, and individual factors into decisionmaking process at the destination
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Research Question 1. What are the underlying mechanisms of travellers’
unplanned behaviors at the destination?
Research question 2. What are the effects of information, context, and
individual factors on travelers’ decisions at the destination?
Research question 3. Do context and individual factors have a
moderating/mediating role on the relationships between information search and
on-site decision-making?
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Slide Number 4

5. Proposed Model
Environments
(Situation, Context)
Adjustment
Pre-defined
Trip Plan
Optimizing
Actualized
Trip Plan
Maintaining
Individual
Characteristics
Improvisation Process
‘spontaneous process of creation and execution’
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Slide Number 5

6. Model development:
Potential Influencing factors
Individual factor
Personality
Decision style
Behavior Changes
Context factor
Physical context
Social context
Intention to change
Information factor
Consistency
Message framing
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Slide Number 6

7. Model development:
Effects of Individual factors
• Individual characteristics influence the degree to which a person is
willing to change his/her original trip plan
– Different abilities to deal with new and unexpected situations
• This study would consider personality traits and decision styles as
individual factors
– More fundamental decision criteria (internal characteristic)
– Personality types (e.g. introversion vs. extroversion)
• the reasons for impulsive purchase
– Decision styles (e.g. promotion focus vs. prevention focus)
• the basic motive of their decision choice
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Slide Number 7

8. Model development:
Effects of context factors
• en route conditions (a series of decision context)
– Sudden changes in the en route condition
 cause alternative and unplanned behaviours (e.g. add, skip, and substitution)
• Decision context is often defined as constrained by different
situations
– determined by a specific time and place,
– include physical, social setting, time, task, and emotional states
• This study would consider two types of decision context
– Physical fatigue (Intrapersonal)
– Companion (Interpersonal) – Social Context
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Slide Number 8

9. Model development:
Effects of Information factors
• Travelers search for the information during all stages of the trip
– b/o limited information, bounded rationality, high levels of uncertainty,
recent advances in mobile device
• Information could help travelers’ understanding of the destination
deeply, which in turn, affects trip experience and causes unplanned
behaviors at the destination
• This study will consider two types of information factors
– Information consistency
– Message framing
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Slide Number 9

10. Study Process
• Phase 1
– Developing a theoretical foundation of travelers’ decision making process at
the destination
– Identifying differences with pre-stage trip planning
• Phase 2
– Conducting a series of web-based experiments with hypothetical scenario
– Using simulations to provoke travelers’ destination adaptation process
• Phase 3
– Replicating the results of phase 1 and 2 with real word setting
– Using mobile recommendation system, GPS, and etc.
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Slide Number 10

11. Phase 2_the 1st Study
• Choice Experiment will be conducted to understand the relative
important or impacts of each influencing factor on changes in trip
behaviors
• Potential identified influencing factors
– Individual (decision styles, personality traits),
– Context (physical, social context),
– Information factors (consistency, argument framing)
• A web-based survey using Mturk
• Orthogonal design (decision choices)
• Expected complete date : by the end of April
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Slide Number 11

12. Phase 2_the 2nd Study
• Lab experiments will be conducted to explore research questions
in more detail and controlled setting
– Independent variables will be based on the results of our first study
• Example (only using information factors)
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2 (consistency) x 2 (message framing) within group factorial design
Develop hypothetical scenarios (including a detailed trip information)
DVs : changes in attitude toward destination, intention to change
Covariates : demographic, individuals travel experience, companion
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Slide Number 12

13. Phase 3
• Field Experiment
– to test further the importance of the respective factors in real world settings
– this study will design a new travel application (for Philadelphia region) and
conduct a field experiment
• The ultimate goal of this study is to develop a mobile
recommender system (i.e. Smartphone application) that
incorporates the results of all the three studies.
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Slide Number 13

14. Anticipated Results
• Theoretical Contributions
– provide the foundation for understanding the dynamic processes that reflects
complex trip behavior at the destination
• Practical Implications
– enable DMOs and tourism companies to better address the needs of traveller
at a destination
– help tourism distribution intermediaries (e.g. online travel agency,
Tripadviser) to improve the efficiency of their recommendation systems
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Slide Number 14

15. Thank you for your attention
Questions and comments?
Yeongbae Choe
(ychoe@temple.edu)
ENTER 2014 Research Track
Slide Number 15