Conceptualizing the Travel Decision-Making Hierarchy: A Review of Recent Developments

Travel decision-making research has enjoyed considerable progress over the decades. Many different models and approaches have been used to advance our knowledge of travel decisions, including gravity and econometric models, psychological motivational/value, information processing theory, attitude theory, and conjoint analysis. Conventional travel research follows a normative perspective, which aims to predict visitor volumes and the overall economic impact of travel to a particular destination. Common to these modeling efforts is that they tend to focus attention on choice of destination. In addition, these conventional approaches emphasize the static nature of travel choice behavior. As a result, these models often provide problematic and invalid estimations. Recent developments in travel choice and decision-making behavior research indicate that travel decisions follow a temporal, dynamic, successive, and multistage contingent decision process. This research establishes the basis for developing an alternative and a more comprehensive view of travel decision making. The article provides an extensive overview of the theoretical underpinnings of travel decision research and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used to better describe the travel decision-making process.