Management

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Tourism Management 26 (2005) 815–832
www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Building and testing theories of decision making by travellers
Ercan Sirakayaa,Ã, Arch G. Woodsideb
a

Department of Recreation, Texas A & M University, Parks and Tourism Sciences, 256A Francis Hall, College Station, TX 77843 2261, USA
b
Boston College, USA
Received 17 April 2003; accepted 25 May2004

Abstract
How does the tourism literature model major recreational travel decisions? What influences do the ‘‘grand models’’ in consumer
research have on tourist destination choice models? This article provides building-block propositions for creating useful theories of
decision making by travelers via a qualitative review of the tourist decision-making literature. The grand models ofdecision-making
in consumer research inform the propositions advanced. The article describes trends in developing traveler destination choice
models. Along with examining decision-making propositions from the literature, the article covers important issues in need of
resolution for making advances in understanding, describing, and predicting tourist decision-making.
r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rightsreserved.
Keywords: Consumer behavior theory; Tourism behavior; Decision-making models; Behavioral and choice-sets models

1. Introduction
Scholars from a variety of social science disciplines
focus on how individuals go about making decisions.
The utility of this work is evident in the field of
marketing, in which a substantial body of decisionmaking literature builds from since the 1950s.A
systematic and in-depth understanding of buying
processes is the main goal of pioneering models of
consumer behavior (see Howard, 1994; Runyon, 1980).
Nicosia (1966), Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell (1968),
Howard and Sheth (1969) and Gilbert (1991) provide
the earliest and most influential models, the ‘‘grand
models,’’ of consumer behavior. These models explain
decisions relating totangible, manufactured, products.
Although not designed to explain service purchase
decisions, the grand models were used by tourism
scholars as a starting point for explaining the process
used to purchase tourism services. The tourism literature
ÃCorresponding author. Tel.: +1-979-862-8819; fax: +1-979-8450446.
E-mail address: esirakay@rpts.tamu.edu (E. Sirakaya).

0261-5177/$ - see frontmatter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2004.05.004

now offers substantial conceptual and empirical works
to describe tourists’ destination choice processes by
empirically probing the following issues. What are the
travelers’ psychological processes during judgment or
choice tasks (i.e., motivation studies)? Which choices are
made among the alternativesconsidered and what cues
are more important on the judgment or on the choice of
a specific destination?
In general, this literature reports that tourists follow a
funnel-like procedure of narrowing down choices among
alternate destinations. Decision-making can be broken
down into a series of well-defined stages: (a) recognition
that there is a decision to be made, (b) formulation of
goals andobjectives, (c) generation of an alternative set
of objects from which to choose, (d) search for
information about the properties of the alternatives
under consideration, (e) ultimate judgment or choice
among many alternatives, (f) acting upon the decision,
and (g) providing feedback for the next decision (Carroll
& Johnson, 1990; Einhorn & Hogarth, 1981; Engel,
Blackwell, & Miniard, 1986; Huber,1980). Evidently,
this decision-making process is influenced by both
psychological or internal variables, for example,

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E. Sirakaya, A.G. Woodside / Tourism Management 26 (2005) 815–832

attitudes, motivation, beliefs and intentions, and nonpsychological or external variables (e.g., time, pull
factors and marketing mix). Given the centrality of the
selection...