"How come you are here?" : Considering the context in research on travel decisions

• Travel decision research still struggles to explain a large portion of the variance in travel choices. We argue that advances in this domain must originate from a shift in the kinds of questions we ask travelers to understand what triggers their decisions. The proposed shift from “Why did you . . . ?” to “How come . . . ?” changes the emphasis from retrospective sense giving to a contextual understanding of travel choice, focusing in particular on the constellations that produce actual travel behavior. This shift opens research avenues of a new theoretical and methodological nature and has fundamental implications for consumer research as well as destination marketing practices.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

travel decision

decision context

decision heuristics

“how come?”

social embeddedness

Turismvetenskap

Tourism

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)