Supporting user decisions in travel and tourism

Travel and tourism makes up a large proportion of business to customer (B2C) e-commerce activity, and e-commerce in this sector is growing rapidly. Users can find vast amounts of travel related information and purchase a wide range of travel related goods and services through the Internet. This presents users with a complex decision-making task when planning a trip or a holiday using on-line facilities. This paper examines a range of accounts of decision making developed both in the context of e-commerce and in travel and tourism. The accounts are compared with data from an investigation using a think-aloud protocol examining a simulated decision task. The results of the investigation suggest that neither the e-commerce models nor the accounts of decision making in travel and tourism, provide completely adequate accounts of user behaviours if used in isolation. Rather elements from both sets of models must be considered relevant. Based on the findings a preliminary framework for the design of new decision-support tools is suggested.