Tourist Choice Processing: Evaluating Decision Rules and Methods of Their Measurement

Li, Chunxiao; McCabe, Scott; Song, Haiyan

Abstract

A detailed understanding of decision rules is essential in order to better explain consumption behavior, yet the variety of decision rules used have been somewhat neglected in tourism research. This study adopts an innovative method, greedoid analysis, to estimate a noncompensatory type of decision rule known as lexicographic by aspect (LBA). It is quite different from the weighted additive (WADD) model commonly assumed in tourism studies. By utilizing an experimental research design, this study enables the evaluation of the two types of decision rules regarding their predictive and explanatory power. Additionally, we introduce a novel evaluation indicator (“cost”), which allows further investigation of the heterogeneity in the use of decision rules. The results suggest that although the out-of-sample accuracy is lower, the LBA model has a better explanatory performance on respondents’ preference order. Moreover, the different perspective provided by the LBA model is useful for obtaining managerial implications.

Citation

Li, C., McCabe, S., & Song, H. (2017). Tourist Choice Processing: Evaluating Decision Rules and Methods of Their Measurement. Journal of Travel Research, 56(6), 699-711. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287516663651

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 29, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Aug 23, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 14, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: May 11, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Travel Research
• Print ISSN: 0047-2875
• Electronic ISSN: 1552-6763
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 699-711
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287516663651
• Keywords: tourist decision making, destination choice measurement, noncompensatory methods, greedoid analysis, China outbound market
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/804776
• Publisher URL: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0047287516663651