Travel Making- From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk and Information Preferences

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Travel Decision-Making:

From the Vantage Point of

Perceived Risk and Information

PreferencesBirgit Maser

a& Klaus Weiermair

b

aInstitute of Tourism and Service Economics,

University of Innsbruck, Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Str. 10,

6020, Innsbruck, Austriab

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

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[ A u c k l a n d U n i v e r s i t y o f T

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Travel Decision-Making:

From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk

and Information Preferences

Birgit MaserKlaus Weiermair

ABSTRACT. Characterist ics of services in tour ism make for a c o m -

plex travel decision-making process full of intransparency and high tinan-

cial and personal risk and uncertainty. Tourists therefore can be expectedto search for variate information from different sources in order to reduce

perceived risk. Risk perception and information search can be consideredimportant factors intluencing travel decision-making. This paper tries to

investigate various aspects of perceived risk and information searchthrough empirical analysis based on a survey among Austrian residents

carried out in May 1996 in Austria. [Article copies aiailable for a feefiornTire Haworth Documerit Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-rnail address:

Retir~o~ihaworilipressitic.orn]

INTRODUCTION

Information can be treated as one of the most or even the most impor-

tant factor influencing and determining consumer behavior (Assael 1987).

“Consumers awareness , selection, and choice of tourism and hospitali ty

produc ts depend s on the inform ation available to and used by the tourist”

(Fodness & Murray 1997, p . 503).

Mag. Birgit Miser is Assistant Professor, Institute of Tourism an d Service Econom-

i c s , University of Innsbruck, Kaiser-Fnnz-Josef-Str.10,6020 Innsbruck, Austria (birgit.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

0 998 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 107



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108 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKET ING

Much work has focussed on the importance of inform ation i n consumerbehavior as well as in tourism behavior (Fodness & Murray 1997; Gitel-son & 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 singlecharacteristic of a planned holiday is most important in the informationsearch process of tourists (Wohler 1993) as well as how variate informa-tion determines travel decision-making (Mansfeld 1992).

Most empirical work done in travel information research has focussedon 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 1 974) butis less presented in the tourism behavior literature (Cheron & Ritchie1982; Roehl & Fesenmaier 1992; Sonm ez & Graefe 1996).

CONTEXT AN D CHARACTERISTICS OF TRAVELDECISION-MAKING

Different authors have described tourism as a system of interrclatcdservice providers rather than an industry (Bieger 1996, Mill & Morrison1992). Also scrvices usually cannot be performed without the active par-

ticipation of the consumer, who in this manner co-determines both theproduction and the delivery of services within the tourism system. Further-more, different authors have stressed the specificities of services for mar-keting in general (Stell & Donoho 1996; Zeithaml & Bitner 1996) andtourism services in particular (Laws 1992; Smith 1994) thus it should notbe necessary to revisit the debate here again i n any great detail. A majorconclusion of this literature has been the observation that experience andcredence qualities of services and goods dominate the travel decision-making process as there is no possibility for tourists for defining andevaluating or even measuring the output of a tourism product before con-sumption.

After individuals have made pre-purchase decisions to take a holiday ahost of involved decisions arise, for example choice of region and resort,timing, type of travel, length of stay, mode of transportation, travel orga-nisation, 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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Birgit Maser arid K ~ U L L Seiernzair- 109

ucts and leisure services, whose characteristics, values and uncertaintiessurrounding their consumption vary greatly, information to be sought andneeded can be regarded as an input or “raw material” (Witte 1975) into

the process of travel decision-making. Information for choosing a destina-tion is sought as tourists attempt to enhance the quality of their trip bydecreasing the level of associated uncertainty through information search(Fodness & Murray 1997).

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 ofuncertainty and its consequences with some consequences being moredesirable to the tourist.

Various risk categories can be employed to explain the composition ofperceived risk o r for forming different groups or segm ents of risk behav-ior. Functional risk, psychological risk, social risk, financial risk, time risk,and physical risk are the risk categories typically employed. Stone andGronhaug (1993), e.g., used six different types of risk in research concern-ing the overall perceived risk associated with the purchase of personal

computers. Thc purchase of a personal computer may be similar to thepurchase of a vacation a s both typically represent decisions of high riskand high involvem ent. They were able to demon strate that the six types ofrisk used i n the analysis could be reduced to two major explanatory riskcategories explaining overall risk perception: the psychological and the

financial risk.With respect to applications i n tourism, Sonmez and Gracfe (1996)

reported research results concerning the relationship between ten differenttypes of risk and the resultant overall risk perceptions of U.S. internationalvacation travelers involving risk associated with eight different geograph-ic areas and seven different top travel destinations. According to thisresearch sign ificant predictors of overall risk perception involve the risk of

being exposed to terrorist acts, having problems with transportation oraccomm odation, becoming entrapped in a country’s political turmoil, and/or being generally dissatisfied with the travel experience. Roehl and Fe-senmaier (1992) identified three types of risk takers, which are subse-quently used to explain pleasure travel behavior: the group whichemphasizes place risk, the group which is most intluenced by functionalrisk and the risk neutral group.

Another important and often used variable explaining and predicting



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110 JOURNAL O F TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETIN G

information search and decision-making is the involvement construct.Involvement is usually characterized as an unobservable state of motiva-tion, arousal or interest, which is evoked by a particular stimulus or situa-

tion, and which has drive properties. Its typical consequen ces are particu-lar types of search, information processing and decision-making, wherebyhigh involvement implies a high intensity in search processes (Reid &

Crompton 1993).

INFORMA TION SE ARCH

According to Manfredo (1989) information search typically occurswhen a person has high involvement in the product and its surrounding

purchase, but realizes that he has inadequate know ledge for mak ing a gooddecision. Moutinho (1987) defines information search as an expressedneed to consult various sources prior to making a purchasing decision.

Th e foremen tioned definitions identify the m ore salient factors explain-ing decision-making and information search. Tourists are high involve-ment customers as tourism products are expensive and risky and as tour-ists generally lack knowledge for making sound decisions. Hence, theyperceive various types of risk and consequently they are searching forinformation as a m eans of reducing risk and improving decision-making.

The study of Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992 ) show ed different aspects as therisk neutral group (the group which consistently perceived less risk ofeach type) were more likely than individuals in the other two risk groups

to use travel agents and tourist information offices or chambers of com-merce as sou rces of pre-trip in form ation.

A distinction is usually made between internal and external informationsearch. Internal information search describes cognitive processes ofmem ory search and information retrieval based upon prior consu mption orinformation experience. The latter describes and explains the search forrequired information which is external to the decision maker. Typicallyexternal information search is modelled as a function of the perceivedvalue of information and co rrelates highly with the cost of the search, withthe uncertainty of the exchange and with the importance of the decision(Etzel & Wahlers 1985).

A critical dimcnsion in the information search process, particularly withrespect to tourism services, is the consumers' subjective assessment ofreliability and trustworthiness of information sources (Dreyer 1996). In

tourism, information sources are frequently classified as either commer-cial or non commercial. A more detailed classification is provided by

Fodness and Murray (1997) who distinguished between source of infor-



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Birgil Miiser arid Klai is Weiermair I l l

mation (commercial or noncommercial) and type of information (imper-sonal or personal).

Analyzing data of the Austrian National Tourist Survey in summer

1994, Mazanec (199.5) reported that 29% of the tourists used impersonalcommercial information sources (brochures). Personal commercial sources(travel agents) were used by over 20% and the same proportion (20%)usedpersonal noncommercial sources (relatives and friends). Over 30% ofthose interwieved used no information sources, which may have resultedfrom the fact that only 11% of the resp ondents were real destinationnaives.

Looking at the decision-making person some authors have used theconcept of “information seek er” (Thorelli et al. 197.5; Thorelli & Thorelli1977) and distinguished between 2 classes of individuals on account oftheir personal characteristics: information seekers (IS) who are carrying

out an active, intensive information search process and non informationseekers (N IS) who are ac ting more like average, non-intensive informationseekers. When using this approach research questions arise, such aswhether the typical information seeker is an active-positive consumer oran active-critical consumer as opposed to the consumption with purelypositive or negative attitudes.

OBJECTIVES O F THE STUDY

The perception of risk and the resultant information search has beenused repeatcdly to explain decision-making. As mentioned previouslytravel related decision-making is a complex decision process characterizedby high risk and high financial cost. Consequently, individuals are highlyinvolved and use information as a means to reduce risk. In this paper som eof the previous propo sitions regarding consum ers’ (tourists‘) risk assump-tion and/or avoidance through respective information acquisition activitiesare accepted (Gem iinden 198.5; Mitchell & Boustani 1994). At the sametime an attempt is made to recognize the conditioning influence of person-al and situational variables (Pitts & Woodside 198 6; Vinson et al. 1977).

In connection w ith the forementioned theoretical argum ents provided i n

the literature the paper wan ts to address two qu estions. The first concernsthe perceived risk used both as an explained and explanatory ph enom enon.First differences in the perception of the overall risk and different riskcategories due to personal, travel-specific and life-style variables arc ana-lyzed. The second test concerns modes of information search and deci-

sion-making in terms of the relationship between types of risk categories



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112 JOURNAL OF TRAVELd TOUUISM M ARKETING

and their intluence upon information search and types of travel decision-making processes.

The second question addresses issues in the determination of informa-

tion search. A behavioral approach towards travel segmentation was usedwhich is based on the assumption that individuals have different patternsof spatial behavior d ue to different travel mo tivations (Kim et al. 1996 ). Asmall number of studies have tried to identify “information search seg-ments” and relate them to specific behavioral variables (Gitelson &

Crompton 1983; Schul & Crompton 1983). An attempt is made here toinvestigate the relationship between information search behavior and per-sonal variables. Which are the most important modes of informationsearch of tourists and how important are personal and life-style charactcr-istics in th i s regard?

SOME EMPIRICAL FINDINGS

Data and M ethod

In the spring of 1996, a regional survey was conducted i n WesternAustria with the objective to investigatc the role of information i n the

de cis ion m ak ing process of tourists. Data were collected over a two weekperiod in May with a semi-structured questionnaire to be used for 228personal interviews chosen at random. Specifically residents of Tyrol i n

Austria were asked to provide inform ation abou t their travel and informa-tion search behavior.

The qu estionnaire was divided into four parts: part 1 dealt with ques-tions regarding travel behavior; part 2 dealt with questions regarding trav-el decision-making; part 3 dealt with questions regarding informationbehavior; and part 4 dealt w ith personal and dem ograp hic data. The ques-

tionnaire contained data about travel intensity, preferred types of vacation,the relative importance of different travel decisionmaking criteria, lengthof decision-making processes, the perception of risk, risk reducing strate-gies employed, the importance of different types of information sought,the satisfaction with different sources of information and information in-tensity.

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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Bir-gitMaser arid K ~ U ~ C SVeiermuir 113

perceptions cannot be explained by personal, travel-specific or life-styleintluences (number of trips pcr year, age , sex , travel budget, leisure activi-ties pursued at home) as differences could neither be associated with the

overall perception of risk nor with various types of risk (as the dependentvariable). The assumed types of risk were associated with travel relateddiseases, crime, natural disaster, accidents, hygiene, danger stemmingfrom different means of transportation, culture/language barriers and un-

certainty with destination specific regulations and laws.Som e types of risk (as the independcnt variable) are, however, signiticantly

associated with behavioral constructs, such as interest for general type ofinformation depends on the perceived risk of specific means of transportation(sig pears = .00024). iffering types of decision-making (rational or impulsive)

are associated with the perceived risk of “last minute” offers (sig pears =.01839), the perceived risk of long haul destinations (sig pears = .01310) as wellas the perceived risk of natural disasters (sig pears = .01418).

Thus i t was found that perceived risk could be partially used as anexplanatory variable explaining decision-making processes of tourists: thehighcr 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 handdid not seem to be intluenced by personal, travel-specific or life-style char-acteristics of the decision maker. Small variance in the underlying data onaccount of small sample size may have in part accounted for these results.

The second empirical test addressed questions surrounding the infor-mation search process of tourists using the “information seeking ap-

proach.” 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 secon dgroup of tourists formed were those who only searched for and consultedinformation sources in the case of an already existing concrete travel plan

(NIS). Th e influence of personal characteristics (sex, education) and trav-el-specific characteristic variables (travel budget) were used as indcpen-dent variables explaining information search behavior.

Using Chi-Square tests for cross classification between groups with hightravel information intensity (looking continuously for travel information) andpersonal characteristics the results show that women display higher probabili-

ties to be information seekers than men (sig pears = .00291). When looking atthe distribution of individuals who seek travel information for actual travelintentions 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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114 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOUIUSM MARKETING

From this, one might deduce that wom en are to a greater ex tent prone touse 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 afar greater extent than men that they wanted more information for travel deci-sion-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 differ-

ent types of information desired. An attempt was made to segment individuals

according to the type of different information sought according to personalcharacteristics and according to their life-style at home. The data base included

a question concerning the type of information which was considered importantfor 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 ofimportance across different types of information.

General information about the destination seemed to be most important

for potential outbound Tyrolean tourists, followed by information aboutclimatic/weather co nditions (the climate of Tyrol is relatively inclement)

followed by inform ation on prices. Less important were information about

shopp ing possibilities and/o r the type of guests/tourists at the destination .Testing once more for gender differences one additional significant

difference occurs with respect to information abo ut the life-style of locals(sig pears = .01455). Women apparently evaluate such information as moreimportant (mean value of 2.61 versus 3.13 for males).

According to the analysis tourists were also searching for types ofinformation in line with their leisure activities at h om e. To further reduce

the complexity of the data a factor analysis was carried out with thepreviously reported information categories involved in travel decision-ma king. Bartlett’s test of Sphericity show ed a significance of .OOOO. Vari-max converged i n 10 iterations and finally the rotated factor matrix gave

five factors according to the Eigenvalue criteria with an explanatory pow-er exceeding 63%. For further analysis the fifth factor was dropped as itsvalues seemed to be doubtful and more than 55% of the total variancecould still be explained with the first four factors.

The first factor included information about accommodation/food as

well as accommodation location and was labelled “a ccom mo dation.” The



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Birgit M aser arid Klaiis Weierrnair- 115

Importance of information about

INFOWl: destination

mean score

1.616

INFOWG: climatic/weather conditions

INFOW5: prices

INFOW3: location of accomodation

INFOW4: type of accomodation/food

INFOW7: culture

I INFOW11: sports activities I 2.584 I

1.929

1.951

2.186

2.215

2.415

I 2.628 I~~

I NFOWlO: animationlfun facilities

INFOW8: life-style of locals

INFOW12: shopping

INFOWS: type of guests at destination

I

INFOW13: ecological aspects I 2.752

2.882

3.090

3.373

I INFOWG: transportation facilities I 2.760 I

second factor included information for sport facilities, for animation andfor shopping and was denoted as “animation.” The third factor wasgrouped around information about culture, life-style of locals, knowledgeabout 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 concernedinformation about price and the destination i n general, which could beinterpreted as basic information fo r travel decision-making and whichtherefore was labelled “basic” (see Table 2).

Employing these 4 factors the question could now be pursued as towhether individuals look for different types of information according to

their preferred leisure activities at home or whether they look for informa-

tion associated with different new tourism activities.The ANOVA tests report results (see Tables 3-5) for three factor grou p-

ings 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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116 JOUR NA L OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKE TING

i INFOWl2 .12797 ,58597 ,06218 ,05319

INFOW7 - 02299 -.21207 .71920 .08103

INFOW8 - 20722 -.lo845 ,69368 ,35344

INFOW9 .18858 ,30811 ,60371 -.13134

INFOW13 ,07006 ,13784 ,55232 ,04894

INFOW5 ,04344 ,04053 -.00638 ,74264

TABLE 2. Rotated Factor Matrix Regarding Types of Information

INFOWll

INFOW10

factor 4Iactor 3

country life-style basicIactor 2

accomodation I animationfactor 1I

-.11816 ,81012 -.03517 ,07835

,22020 .74937 ,01173 ,00633

INFOW6

INFOW2

.11295 .20619 ,26031 .13658

,36651 ,18057 ,00738 ,46197

INFOWl I ,01160 I ,05159 I ,27644 I ,67421

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 activi-

ties and five importance grou ps only those which obtained statisticallysignificant results are reported in Table 3.

Table 3 sho ws that tourists, w ho seek information about ac com mo da-

tion, 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 hom e" preference sets (notice however low eta?).A m u c h stronger relationship appea rs to exist between individuals look-

ing for information about animation and being very active at home. Here

34 % of the total variance can be explained.

Information abo ut the life-style of a country see ms to be relatively more

relevant for decision m akers, wh o love culture and/or nature and /or like to

be with other people. Particularly cultural aspects seemed to be very im-

portant as more than 28%of the total variance cou ld be explained in this

instance.

Th e fourth factor, basic information about the price a nd the destination



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Birgit M aser arid Kluirs Weiertnair 117

FACTOR Accomodation

likes being together with people

likes being together with children

Fprob eta2

0.01 0.062

0.013 0.086

FACTOR Animation

likes sports

I Fprob I era*ACTOR Country Life-styleI I

Fprob eta2

0.000 0.347

likes nature

likes being together with people

I likes culture 1 0.000 I 0.285 I

0.039 0.075

0.018 0.063

i n general, seemed to be statistically intluenced by nonc of the ac tivities, aresult which seemed reasonable on a priori groun ds.

The results suggest that the search for spec ial types of information is, asexpected, influenced by tourists’ activities and hidher life style at home.Thus decision niakcrs tend to look for typcs of information according totheir preferrcd leisure activities pursued at home.

CONCLUSION

First of all, the limitations of th i s study in terms of sample size andvariables used should be recognized. This study did not address in detailthe composition concerning the overall perceived risk. There was onequestion which asked tourists if they, in general, perceive travel relatedrisks or not. If thcy agreed in general to perceive travel related risks theyhad to express the strength of the risk perception for different reportedtypes of risk. N o tests were carried out investigating the importance andthe contribution of these different types of risk for creating an overallperceived risk. Second, perceived risk and information search may be

intluenced by other variables than the tested ones. The third limitation



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118 J OURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

concerns the sampling frame. It was limited to residents o f Tyrol andpossibly introduces a regional bias (on account of differing travel intensi-ties and/or differences in travel intermediary services).

Nevertheless this study p rovided t w o important results. T he first resultconcerns perceived risk. The data used in this study seemed t o show thatneither overall perceived risk nor different elements of it are influenced bypersonal, travel sp ecific or life-style characteristics. Th us it see m s not veryuseful to explain perceived risk in terms of these reported characteristics.The results could possibly differ if other independent variables were cho-sen to explain perceived risk.

On the other hand, using perceived risk an d types of risk as an indepen-dent variable to explain their influence on information search an d decisionbehavior appears to be much more promising. The interest for travel

information appears to be strongly influenced by the perceived risk ofmeans of transportation. Also decision types (rational or impulsive) areintluenced by the perception of spe cific types of risk. Much mo re researchwill be required to validate these tentative findings.

The second set of results concerns the information search prcmss. In ourstudy women were charaderized as the classical information seeking segment.

Again, more research will be needed to reconfirm these results and secondly itwill be necessary to introduce additional variables for describing the female

population of information seekers as corollary interesting questions arise con-

cerning 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 198 0; 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 toeither 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 ofwomen and information search according to the life-style should have importantimplications for tourism managers in deciding appropriate marketinghdvertis-ing strategies for different segments of the tourism market.

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Travel Making- From the Vantage Point of Perceived Risk and Information Preferences

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