Process studies of tourists' decision-making: the riches beyond variance studies

Abstract

We discuss the paucity of rich decision-making models in tourism. Following a review of decision-making approaches, in which we include the emerging paradigm of naturalistic decision-making, we find that the literature on tourists’ decision-making is dominated by ‘variance’ studies of tourists’ decisions by causal analysis of independent variables that explain choices by tourists. We contend that this is at odds with the ontology of decisionmaking as a process, a deeper understanding of which may only be generated through process studies of tourists’ decision-making. This typically involves narrating the emergent actions and activities by which individual or collective endeavours unfold. We discuss the implications of this in the context of building and testing naturalistic models and simulations of tourists’ decision-making.