This volume focuses on consumer decision making for evaluating choice alternatives in tourism, leisure, and hospitality operations. It deals with research and methodological problems such as coping with nonlinear utility functions, capturing highly emotional product attributes, incorporating...

This paper argues that tourist behaviour research should be based on explicit hypotheses or, even better, on a system of interconnected relationships (a 'model'). The models are subject to empirical testing to assess their explanatory and predictive capabilities. As in any other sub-field of...

This chapter introduces a methodology that assists in making tourism counselling and recommender systems 'adaptive'. The kind of 'adaptivity' desired here is based on a system's capability of learning about changes in three respects: (i) macro patterns of consumer information acquisition and usage; ...

This chapter examines two trends regarding: the way tourism managers are considering tourist typologies; and the methods employed for constructing these typologies. The trends are briefly explained and evaluated in terms of scientific progress criteria. A case example is then presented to...

This paper provides a detailed set of guidelines for developing operational measures for each component of a destination competitiveness/sustainability model. The process suggested includes a strong consumer orientation to complement the industry-based measures that are traditionally employed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose consumer confidence as an intervening variable conditioning the effects of experience and knowledge on tourists' ratings of destination images. Specifically, this research proposes that experience and knowledge influence both destination attribute assessments ...

The study investigates the relationship of cognitive distance, actual distance and the allocation of long-haul destinations within US tourists' choice sets. Data were collected on 225 tourists' perceptions of Australia and Italy as destinations. Findings suggest that the perceived distance to...

In 1998, evidence was provided suggesting that an apparent 15% decline in domestic travel estimated from the Canadian Travel Surveys (CTS) of 1994, 1996, and 1997 was possibly misleading. This decline could actually be the result of methodological changes in the survey rather than a change in...

This paper reviews methodological developments in choice modelling (CM) and the state of CM research in tourism, hospitality and leisure through a review of 43 CM studies. The paper emphasizes the theoretical and methodological advantages of Discrete Choice Analysis based on Random Utility Theory...

A purchase-consumption system (PCS) is the sequence of mental and observable steps a consumer undertakes to buy and use several products for which some of the products purchased lead to a purchase sequence involving other products. The use of qualitative comparative analysis (i.e., the use of...