پویایی در تصمیم گیری مقصد گردشگری : یک مدل سازگار

ABSTRACT Dynamic in-destination decision-making: An adjustment model

The management of tourism depends in part upon the successful management of tourist behaviours and experiences. Tourism, and leisure travel in particular, presents a dilemma in this regard. Leisure travel operates within a realm of relative freedom often said, though not without controversy, to be a crucial feature of the leisure experience (Neulinger,1976). It is recognised by both tourism researchers and practitioners that part of a successful leisure travel experience is often the sense, for the tourist, of relative freedom of choice, openended exploration (including Crompton’s (1979) motive of exploration of self) and autonomy over the travel episode. Compared with other life spheres, researchers often assume that the performance of tourism is at the tourist’s leisure, rather than in conformance with coercive forces or formal obligations.

This freedom presents a significant challenge for both managers and tourism researchers seeking to understand and predict the aggregate behaviours of tourists. These behaviours range between a fundamental concern with route taken and overall itinerary, through choice of accommodation, transport and activity to the daily purchases made on-site. Further complicating this challenging task is the growing uncertainty over future flows of tourists in response to such global factors as climate change and peak oil (Becken, 2008).

Increasing macro-level uncertainty leads, logically, to even greater concern over how best to derive the benefits from tourism that are desired by businesses, communities and nations, that is the ‘yield’ from tourism. The present authors are not concerned primarily with the question of yield – its definition, scope and enhancement. However, it is worth emphasising that whatever the notions of tourism yield mean, central to its enhancement will be innovative insights into how tourists act on-site and in situ