In today's highly competitive and global economy, understanding tourist behavior is imperative to success. Tourist behavior has become a cornerstone of any marketing strategy and action. Choosing, buying and consuming tourism/travel products and services includes a range of psycho-social processes and a number of personal and environmental influences that researchers and managers should take into account. This book provides an overview of such processes and influences and explains the basic concepts and theories that underlie tourist decision-making and behavior. It also incorporates a number of cases studies in order to aid readers to better appraise the application of those concepts and theories. The Handbook of Tourist Behavior will be of significant interest to researchers and students in tourism, leisure, marketing and psychology, and also to practitioners in the tourism industry.
Preface. Part 1: Motivation and Need Recognition 1. Interpretive Consumer Research: Uncovering the 'Whys' Underlying Tourist Behavior 2. Antecedents and Consequences of Prestige Motivation in Tourism: An Expectancy-Value Motivation Part 2: Perception and Information Processing 3. Tourism Destination Image Formation 4. Tourist Information Search Part 3: Evaluation of Alternatives and Choice 5. Decision Strategies in Tourism Evaluation 6. Planning and Exploratory Buying Behavior Part 4: The Tourism Experience 7. Understanding Tourist Experience though Mindfulness Theory 8. Unlocking the Shared Experience: Challenges of Consumer Experience Research Part 5: Post-Choice Processes 9. Processes and Performances of Tourist (Dis)Satisfaction 10. Service Failure, Tourist Complaints and Service Recovery 11. What Determines Tourist Loyalty? In Search of a Theoretical Explanation Part 6: Individual Determinants of Tourist Behavior 12. Tourism Segmentation by Consumer-Based Variables 13. Emotions and Affective States in Tourism Behaviour Part 7: Environmental Determinants of Tourist Behavior 14. E-tourist Behavior: The Influence of IT on Consumers 15. The Role of Media Products on Consumer Behaviour in Tourism 16. Cross-Cultural Differences in Tourist Behavior
