A sobrecarga de opções e o abandono da escolha: um estudo experimental sobre a decisão de um roteiro turístico

Abstract

The decision-making processes of tourism are theorized from general models based on the belief that travelers are rational decision makers capable of maximizing the utility of their decisions. This dissertation confronts this approach by highlighting the possibility of integrating more recent research from the consumer behavior field, which recognizes the possible plurality in the reasoning of individuals and in the styles of decision-making, to the models of tourism decision-making. On the theoretical basis of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, it is indicated that the observation of the tourist choice, in general, should also integrate the individual psychological processes that set the use of strategies of Traditional economic and psychological theories suggest that having more options is beneficial to decision-makers. However, according to the choice overload theory, too many choices can sometimes lead to conflicting outcomes, such as the decision-making stalemate in which consumers give up the choice. The choice overload was extensively discussed by researchers such as Iyengar and Lepper (2000), Schwartz (2002), Iyengar, Jiang and Huberman (2003), Jessup et al. (2009), Scheibehenne et al. (2009) and Scheibehenne et al. (2010). Considering the wide variety of tourist products, the main objective of this dissertation was to verify the hypothesis of choice overload in the context of the tourism industry, especially in the choice of destinations to compose a travel itinerary. To do so, through an experimental methodology, the decision of common travelers was simulated before the proposed scenario and random distribution of study participants in two different groups of choice, with fewer (14) or more (70) tourist destination options. In line with the research cited, the results of the study showed that having more options increased the probability of abandoning one's own choice, corroborating the existence of the choice overload in the tourism industry, especially in the elaboration of tourist itineraries. The present study also showed that other effects such as lower level of familiarity with the set of options, age over 45 years and the sex of the individuals, can lead them to different decision-making behaviors and the abandonment of their own choice in the proposed decision process. Once the presence of the choice overload in the process of choosing tourist destinations and in the decision-making of a frequent traveler has been verified, some practical implications and possible future research are discussed in the main body of this dissertation.