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Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing

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Travel Decision-Making: From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk and Information Preferences
Birgit Maser & Klaus Weiermair
a a b

Institute of Tourism and Service Economics, University of Innsbruck, Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Str. 10, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
b

Institute of Tourism and Service Economics

Available online: 13 Oct 2008

To cite this article: Birgit Maser & Klaus Weiermair (1998): Travel Decision-Making: From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk and Information Preferences, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 7:4, 107-121 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J073v07n04_06

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Travel Decision-Making: From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk and Information Preferences
Birgit Maser Klaus Weiermair
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ABSTRACT. Characteristics of services in tourism make for a complex travel decision-making process full of intransparency and high tinancial and personal risk and uncertainty. Tourists therefore can be expected to search for variate information from different sources in order to reduce perceived risk. Risk perception and information search can be considered
important factors intluencing travel decision-making. This paper tries to investigate various aspects of perceived risk and information search through empirical analysis based o n a survey among Austrian residents carried out in May 1996 in Austria. [Article copies aiailable for a feefiorn
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INTRODUCTION
Information can be treated as one of the most or even the most important factor influencing and determining consumer behavior (Assael 1987). Consumers awareness, selection, and choice of tourism and hospitality products depends on the information available to and used by the tourist (Fodness & Murray 1997, p. 503). Mag. Birgit Miser is Assistant Professor, Institute of Tourism and Service Economics, University of Innsbruck, Kaiser-Fnnz-Josef-Str.10,6020 Innsbruck, Austria (bir git.maeser~iiiibk.ac.at).Professor Dr. Klaus Weiermair (klaus.weiermair~~uibk.ac.at) is Head, Institute of Tourism and Service Economics.
Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol. 7(4) 1998 0 1998 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Much work has focussed on the importance of information in consumer behavior as well as in tourism behavior (Fodness & Murray 1997; Gitelson & Crompton 1983; Schul & Crompton 1983; Snepenger et al. 1990). Research gaps nevertheless still exist (Moscardo et al. 1996; Ritchie 1994; Wohler 1993). There are still considerable doubts as to which single characteristic of a planned holiday is most important in the information search process of tourists (Wohler 1993) as well as how variate information determines travel decision-making (Mansfeld 1992). Most empirical work done in travel information research has focussed on identifying either information search segments or information source segments (Capella & Grew 1987; Etzel & Wahlers 1985; Fodness & Murray 1997; Gitelson & Crornpton 1983; Manfredo 1989; Nolan 1976) and has used behavioral and personal characteristics for its description. The perception of risk dominates research questions in consumer behavior (Gemiinden 1985; Stone & Gronhaug 1993; Stone 1984; Taylor 1974) but is less presented in the tourism behavior literature (Cheron & Ritchie 1982; Roehl & Fesenmaier 1992; Sonmez & Graefe 1996).
CONTEXT A N D CHARACTERISTICS OF TRAVEL DECISION-MAKING

Different authors have described tourism as a system of interrclatcd service providers rather than an industry (Bieger 1996, Mill & Morrison 1992). Also scrvices usually cannot be performed without the active participation of the consumer, who in this manner co-determines both the production and the delivery of services within the tourism system. Furthermore, different authors have stressed the specificities of services for marketing in general (Stell & Donoho 1996; Zeithaml & Bitner 1996) and tourism services in particular (Laws 1992; Smith 1994) thus it should not be necessary to revisit the debate here again in any great detail. A major conclusion of this literature has been the observation that experience and credence qualities of services and goods dominate the travel decisionmaking process as there is no possibility for tourists for defining and evaluating or even measuring the output of a tourism product before consumption. After individuals have made pre-purchase decisions to take a holiday a host of involved decisions arise, for example choice of region and resort, timing, type of travel, length of stay, mode of transportation, travel organisation, accommodation, tourism activities, financing (Filiautrault & Ritchie 1980; Snepenger et al. 1990). Since travel decisions encompass simultaneous and interrelated decisions about a series of individual prod-

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ucts and leisure services, whose characteristics, values and uncertainties surrounding their consumption vary greatly, information to be sought and needed can be regarded as an input or raw material (Witte 1975) into the process of travel decision-making. Information for choosing a destination is sought as tourists attempt to enhance the quality of their trip by decreasing the level of associated uncertainty through information search (Fodness & Murray 1997).
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PERCEIVED RISK In general, choice situations involve two types of uncertainty and risk: uncertainty about outcomes and uncertainty about consequences (Taylor 1974). Perceived risk can, therefore, be characterized as a function of uncertainty and its consequences with some consequences being more desirable to the tourist. Various risk categories can be employed to explain the composition of perceived risk o r for forming different groups or segments of risk behavior. Functional risk, psychological risk, social risk, financial risk, time risk, and physical risk are the risk categories typically employed. Stone and Gronhaug (1993), e.g., used six different types of risk in research concerning the overall perceived risk associated with the purchase of personal computers. Thc purchase of a personal computer may be similar to the purchase of a vacation as both typically represent decisions of high risk and high involvement. They were able to demonstrate that the six types of risk used i n the analysis could be reduced to two major explanatory risk categories explaining overall risk perception: the psychological and the financial risk. With respect to applications in tourism, Sonmez and Gracfe (1996) reported research results concerning the relationship between ten different types of risk and the resultant overall risk perceptions of U.S. international vacation travelers involving risk associated with eight different geographic areas and seven different top travel destinations. According to this research significant predictors of overall risk perception involve the risk of being exposed to terrorist acts, having problems with transportation or accommodation, becoming entrapped in a countrys political turmoil, and/ or being generally dissatisfied with the travel experience. Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992) identified three types of risk takers, which are subsequently used to explain pleasure travel behavior: the group which emphasizes place risk, the group which is most intluenced by functional risk and the risk neutral group. Another important and often used variable explaining and predicting

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information search and decision-making is the involvement construct. Involvement is usually characterized as an unobservable state of motivation, arousal or interest, which is evoked by a particular stimulus or situation, and which has drive properties. Its typical consequences are particular types of search, information processing and decision-making, whereby high involvement implies a high intensity in search processes (Reid & Crompton 1993).
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INFORMA TION SEARCH

According to Manfredo (1989) information search typically occurs when a person has high involvement in the product and its surrounding purchase, but realizes that he has inadequate knowledge for making a good decision. Moutinho (1987) defines information search as an expressed need to consult various sources prior to making a purchasing decision. The forementioned definitions identify the more salient factors explaining decision-making and information search. Tourists are high involvement customers as tourism products are expensive and risky and as tourists generally lack knowledge for making sound decisions. Hence, they perceive various types of risk and consequently they are searching for information as a means of reducing risk and improving decision-making. The study of Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992) showed different aspects as the risk neutral group (the group which consistently perceived less risk of each type) were more likely than individuals in the other two risk groups to use travel agents and tourist information offices or chambers of commerce as sources of pre-trip information. A distinction is usually made between internal and external information search. Internal information search describes cognitive processes of memory search and information retrieval based upon prior consumption or information experience. The latter describes and explains the search for required information which is external to the decision maker. Typically external information search is modelled as a function of the perceived value of information and correlates highly with the cost of the search, with the uncertainty of the exchange and with the importance of the decision (Etzel & Wahlers 1985). A critical dimcnsion in the information search process, particularly with respect to tourism services, is the consumers' subjective assessment of reliability and trustworthiness of information sources (Dreyer 1996). In tourism, information sources are frequently classified as either commercial or non commercial. A more detailed classification is provided by Fodness and Murray (1997) who distinguished between source of infor-

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mation (commercial or noncommercial) and type of information (impersonal or personal). Analyzing data of the Austrian National Tourist Survey in summer 1994, Mazanec (199.5) reported that 29% of the tourists used impersonal commercial information sources (brochures). Personal commercial sources (travel agents) were used by over 20% and the same proportion (20%) used personal noncommercial sources (relatives and friends). Over 30% of those interwieved used no information sources, which may have resulted from the fact that only 11% of the respondents were real destination naives. Looking at the decision-making person some authors have used the concept of information seeker (Thorelli et al. 197.5; Thorelli & Thorelli 1977) and distinguished between 2 classes of individuals on account of their personal characteristics: information seekers (IS) who are carrying out an active, intensive information search process and non information seekers (NIS) who are acting more like average, non-intensive information seekers. When using this approach research questions arise, such as whether the typical information seeker is an active-positive consumer or an active-critical consumer as opposed to the consumption with purely positive or negative attitudes.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The perception of risk and the resultant information search has been used repeatcdly to explain decision-making. As mentioned previously travel related decision-making is a complex decision process characterized by high risk and high financial cost. Consequently, individuals are highly involved and use information as a means to reduce risk. In this paper some of the previous propositions regarding consumers (tourists) risk assumption and/or avoidance through respective information acquisition activities are accepted (Gemiinden 198.5; Mitchell & Boustani 1994). At the same time an attempt is made to recognize the conditioning influence of personal and situational variables (Pitts & Woodside 1986; Vinson et al. 1977). In connection with the forementioned theoretical arguments provided in the literature the paper wants to address two questions. The first concerns the perceived risk used both as an explained and explanatory phenomenon. First differences in the perception of the overall risk and different risk categories due to personal, travel-specific and life-style variables arc analyzed. The second test concerns modes of information search and decision-making in terms of the relationship between types of risk categories

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and their intluence upon information search and types of travel decisionmaking processes. The second question addresses issues in the determination of information search. A behavioral approach towards travel segmentation was used which is based on the assumption that individuals have different patterns of spatial behavior due to different travel motivations (Kim et al. 1996). A small number of studies have tried to identify information search segments and relate them to specific behavioral variables (Gitelson & Crompton 1983; Schul & Crompton 1983). An attempt is made here to investigate the relationship between information search behavior and personal variables. Which are the most important modes of information search of tourists and how important are personal and life-style charactcristics in this regard?

SOME EMPIRICAL FINDINGS Data and Method

In the spring of 1996, a regional survey was conducted in Western Austria with the objective to investigatc the role of information in the decisionmaking process of tourists. Data were collected over a two week period in May with a semi-structured questionnaire to be used for 228 personal interviews chosen at random. Specifically residents of Tyrol i n Austria were asked to provide information about their travel and information search behavior. The questionnaire was divided into four parts: part 1 dealt with questions regarding travel behavior; part 2 dealt with questions regarding travel decision-making; part 3 dealt with questions regarding information behavior; and part 4 dealt with personal and demographic data. The questionnaire contained data about travel intensity, preferred types of vacation, the relative importance of different travel decisionmaking criteria, length of decision-making processes, the perception of risk, risk reducing strategies employed, the importance of different types of information sought, the satisfaction with different sources of information and information intensity.

Findings
The first objective of this study concerned qucstions surrounding the perception of risk. Simple Chi-square tests revealed that different risk

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perceptions cannot be explained by personal, travel-specific or life-style intluences (number of trips pcr year, age, sex, travel budget, leisure activities pursued at home) as differences could neither be associated with the overall perception of risk nor with various types of risk (as the dependent variable). The assumed types of risk were associated with travel related diseases, crime, natural disaster, accidents, hygiene, danger stemming from different means of transportation, culture/language barriers and uncertainty with destination specific regulations and laws. Some types of risk (as the independcnt variable) are, however, signiticantly associated with behavioral constructs, such as interest for general type of information depends on the perceived risk of specific means of transportation Differing types of decision-making (rational or impulsive) (sig pears = .00024). are associated with the perceived risk of last minute offers (sig pears = .01839), the perceived risk of long haul destinations (sig pears = .01310) as well as the perceived risk of natural disasters (sig pears = .01418). Thus it was found that perceived risk could be partially used as an explanatory variable explaining decision-making processes of tourists: the highcr the perceived risk the more information tourists seem to search for and the more rational the decision process becomes. Overall perception of risk and various risk types used as the dependent variable on the other hand did not seem to be intluenced by personal, travel-specific or life-style characteristics of the decision maker. Small variance in the underlying data on account of small sample size may have in part accounted for these results. The second empirical test addressed questions surrounding the information search process of tourists using the information seeking approach. Although information seeking is difficult to operationalise an attempt was made to create and work with proxy variables. First, active positive tourists were characterized as those who were very involved and/or engaged with the procurement of information (IS) while the second group of tourists formed were those who only searched for and consulted information sources in the case of an already existing concrete travel plan (NIS). The influence of personal characteristics (sex, education) and travel-specific characteristic variables (travel budget) were used as indcpendent variables explaining information search behavior. Using Chi-Square tests for cross classification between groups with high travel information intensity (looking continuously for travel information) and personal characteristics the results show that women display higher probabilities to be information seekers than men (sig pears = .00291). When looking at the distribution of individuals who seek travel information for actual travel intentions only the opposite holds true in that more males look for travel information when facing concrete travel decisions (sig pears = .04305).

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From this, one might deduce that women are to a greater extent prone to use information in order to reduce travel related risk (sig pears = .00775). Women generally indicated that the supply of travel information is insufticient relative to their information needs (sig pears = .05330). Women also showed to a far greater extent than men that they wanted more information for travel decision-making (sig = .00082). In summary, women could be characterized as the archetype of information seeker. Probing further as to whether intensive information seeking was in any way associated with the size of the travel budget or with the education of tourists no statistically significant relationships were found. As a next step, tests were undertaken surrounding the question about different types of information desired. An attempt was made to segment individuals according to the type of different information sought according to personal characteristics and according to their life-style at home. The data base included a question concerning the type of information which was considered important for travel decision-making. Specifically individuals were asked to evaluate the importance of 13 different types of information on a Likert-sale from 1 to 5, whereby 1 indicated most important and 5 totally unimportant. Table 1 shows the mean value for different types of information indicating different levels of importance across different types of information. General information about the destination seemed to be most important for potential outbound Tyrolean tourists, followed by information about climatic/weather conditions (the climate of Tyrol is relatively inclement) followed by information on prices. Less important were information about shopping possibilities and/or the type of guests/tourists at the destination. Testing once more for gender differences one additional significant difference occurs with respect to information about the life-style of locals (sig pears = .01455). Women apparently evaluate such information as more important (mean value of 2.61 versus 3.13 for males). According to the analysis tourists were also searching for types of information in line with their leisure activities at home. To further reduce the complexity of the data a factor analysis was carried out with the previously reported information categories involved in travel decisionmaking. Bartletts test of Sphericity showed a significance of .OOOO. Varimax converged in 10 iterations and finally the rotated factor matrix gave five factors according to the Eigenvalue criteria with an explanatory power exceeding 63%. For further analysis the fifth factor was dropped as its values seemed to be doubtful and more than 55% of the total variance could still be explained with the first four factors. The first factor included information about accommodation/food as well as accommodation location and was labelled accommodation. The

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Importance of information about INFOWl: INFOWG: INFOW5: destination climatic/weather conditions prices location of accomodation type of accomodation/food culture sports activities animationlfun facilities ecological aspects transportation facilities life-style of locals

mean score 1.616 1.929 1.951 2.186 2.215 2.41 5

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INFOW3: INFOW4: INFOW7:

I INFOWlO:
~~

I INFOW11:

2.584 2.628 2.752 2.760 2.882 3.090 3.373

I
I

INFOW13:

INFOWG:
INFOW8: INFOW12: INFOWS:

I I

shopping
type of guests at destination

second factor included information for sport facilities, for animation and for shopping and was denoted as animation. The third factor was grouped around information about culture, life-style of locals, knowledge about types of guests at the destination and ecological perspectives, all aspects which included information about the life-style of the host country, hence factor three was called country life-style. Factor four concerned information about price and the destination in general, which could be interpreted as basic information for travel decision-making and which therefore was labelled basic (see Table 2). Employing these 4 factors the question could now be pursued as to whether individuals look for different types of information according to their preferred leisure activities at home or whether they look for information associated with different new tourism activities. The ANOVA tests report results (see Tables 3-5) for three factor groupings used as dependent variables in terms of preferred leisure activities pursued at home (9 leisure activity categories) expressed in terms of 5

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TABLE 2. Rotated Factor Matrix Regarding Types of Information

I
INFOWll INFOW10

factor 1 accomodation -.11816 ,22020

factor 2 animation ,81012 .74937 ,58597 -.21207 -.lo845 ,30811 ,13784 ,04053

factor 3 country life-style -.03517 ,01173 ,06218 .71920 ,69368 ,60371 ,55232 -.00638

factor 4 basic ,07835 ,00633 ,05319 .08103 ,35344 -.13134 ,04894 ,74264

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INFOWl2 INFOW7 INFOW8 INFOW9 INFOW13 INFOW5 INFOWl INFOW6 INFOW2

.12797
- ,02299 - ,20722
.18858

,07006 ,04344

,01160

,05159 .20619 ,18057

,27644 ,26031 ,00738

,67421
.1 3658

.11295
,36651

,46197

categories of importance (Likert-scale from very important to totally unimportant) t h u s yielding a matrix of 45 cells. Out of the 9 leisure activities and five importance groups only those which obtained statistically significant results are reported in Table 3. Table 3 shows that tourists, who seek information about accommodation, also tend to prefer being with people at home or with children. Therefore it could be said that decision makers, who are home and family orientated tend to look more for information concerning "home away from home" preference sets (notice however low eta?). A much stronger relationship appears to exist between individuals looking for information about animation and being very active at home. Here 34% of the total variance can be explained. Information about the life-style of a country seems to be relatively more relevant for decision makers, who love culture and/or nature and/or like to be with other people. Particularly cultural aspects seemed to be very important as more than 28% of the total variance could be explained in this instance. The fourth factor, basic information about the price and the destination

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FACTOR Accomodation likes being together with people likes being together with children

Fprob

eta2
0.062

0.017

0.013

0.086

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FACTOR Animation
likes sports

Fprob
0.000

eta2

0.347

FACTOR Country Life-style

likes nature likes being together with people

I
1

Fprob

era*
0.075 0.063

0.039
0.018

I
I

I likes culture

0.000

0.285

in general, seemed to be statistically intluenced by nonc of the activities, a result which seemed reasonable on a priori grounds. The results suggest that the search for special types of information is, as expected, influenced by tourists activities and hidher life style at home. Thus decision niakcrs tend to look for typcs of information according to their preferrcd leisure activities pursued at home.
CONCLUSION
First of all, the limitations of this study in terms of sample size and variables used should be recognized. This study did not address in detail the composition concerning the overall perceived risk. There was one question which asked tourists if they, in general, perceive travel related risks or not. If thcy agreed in general to perceive travel related risks they had to express the strength of the risk perception for different reported types of risk. N o tests were carried out investigating the importance and the contribution of these different types of risk for creating an overall perceived risk. Second, perceived risk and information search may be intluenced by other variables than the tested ones. The third limitation

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concerns the sampling frame. It was limited to residents of Tyrol and possibly introduces a regional bias (on account of differing travel intensities and/or differences in travel intermediary services). Nevertheless this study provided two important results. The first result concerns perceived risk. The data used in this study seemed to show that neither overall perceived risk nor different elements of it are influenced by personal, travel specific or life-style characteristics. Thus it seems not very useful to explain perceived risk in terms of these reported characteristics. The results could possibly differ if other independent variables were chosen to explain perceived risk. On the other hand, using perceived risk and types of risk as an independent variable to explain their influence on information search and decision behavior appears to be much more promising. The interest for travel information appears to be strongly influenced by the perceived risk of means of transportation. Also decision types (rational or impulsive) are intluenced by the perception of specific types of risk. Much more research will be required to validate these tentative findings. The second set of results concerns the information search prcmss. In our study women were charaderized as the classical information seeking segment. Again, more research will be needed to reconfirm these results and secondly it will be necessary to introduce additional variables for describing the female population of information seekers as corollary interesting questions arise concerning the extent of women's influence on travel decisions of families/couples. Although a number of studies concerning family travel decision-making already exist (Filiautrault & Ritchie 1980; Jenkins 1978; Ritchie & Filiautrault 1980) the dominating influence of women has never been proven (but see Cosenza & Davis 1981 for some cases of the family life cycle). The latter may be due to either differences in Overseas and European life-styles or the fact that this question was never the main objective of inquiry in the forementioned studies. The second interesting domain of information search issues and problems concerns types of information sought and preferred leisure activities of tourists at home. In general, tourists are searching for types of information according to their leisure activityjife-style at home. Both thc travel information behavior of women and information search according to the life-style should have important implications for tourism managers in deciding appropriate marketinghdvertising strategies for different segments of the tourism market. REFERENCES Assael, H. (1987). Corzsirnier Behavior arid Marketing Action. Boston: Kent Publishing. Bieger, T. (1996). Managernerzf t'ori Desfirzafiorieriirrzd Toirrisr~zirsorgariisufiorzerz. Miinchen: Oldenbourg.

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