Tourist decision-making and travel destination recommendation systems.

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter argues that, in the context of tourists' use of information technology, it is more important to understand tourists' actual choices of whether or not to use the technology than their attitudes towards, and their stated intentions to use, a certain technology. Following from this understanding, three conceptual models are proposed to examine tourists' choice of travel destination recommendation systems (TDRSs): (i) tourists' attitude towards using a TDRS is conceptualized as a function of the destination recommended, the perceived usefulness and the level of enjoyment of the system; (ii) tourists' choice to use a TDRS is determined by their attitudes towards the system, the features of the system and the features of other destination choice channels; and (iii) the destination choice process when using a TDRS is described as an iterative process involving two sequential steps that are repeated until a destination is selected. Empirical evidence indicates that recommendation systems can have a significant impact on tourist choices. It is thus concluded that future research should focus on empirically testing the proposed models and investigating how tourists' preferences will be influenced by the use of a TDRS.