The habit of holidays

Abstract

Generally, people's decision-making processes leading to their going on holiday are defined as complex processes characterized by high degrees of uncertainty and risk; substantial expenditure; and elaborate pre-purchase information search. However, the series of qualitative interviews which this article reports suggest that it is too simplistic to define up-front holiday decision-making processes as extensive problem-solving. The interviews reveal three patterns of holiday decision-making among the Danish informants. For those informants who view holidays away from home as central to their lives, decision-making processes are `habitualized'. Those informants for whom holidays are of lesser importance rely on ad-hoc, low involvement, decision-making. Only the final group of informants, who have recently started to go on new types of holidays, engage in extensive problem-solving. Drawing on Berger and Luckman's discussion on institutionalization, this article explores why extensive problem-solving is only one of the different decision-making processes that people rely on when planning their holidays.