Planning Horizon in International Travel Decision-Making: The Role of Individual and Cultural Determinants

Abstract

A solid understanding of when travel decisions are made in relation to travelers’ planning horizons is crucial for travel service providers. Despite its importance, there are very few empirical studies investigating the planning horizon and its antecedents in travel research literature. This study contributes to bridging this gap by conceptualizing a two-level model of antecedents of travelers’ planning horizons. In addition to individual traveler- and trip-related aspects, the model provides a cross-cultural perspective on international travelers’ planning horizons by including uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and long-term orientation as cultural-level antecedents. Drawing on a nested dataset of 4,074 international travelers from 17 countries worldwide, the results of a two-level hierarchical regression model show that, in addition to individual-level aspects, cultural antecedents play an important role in determining planning horizons. Based on the empirical results, the paper discusses implications for theory and travel service providers.

International air travel attitude and travel planning lead times across 45 countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Similarly, they reported fewer days in trip planning for high UA respondents. Elsewhere, studies did not find significant evidence of the role of UA on planning time/ horizon: Crotts (2004) did not find significant differences between US nationals travelling to high or low UA country, while Backhaus et al (2022) found that UA only had a marginal effect on travel planning travel to European countries.…”

“…Research on travel planning has relied on structured surveys (Backhaus et al, 2022;Huh & Park, 2010;Litvin et al,2004;Mone & Crotts, 2003) or scenario-base experiments (Rahman et al, 2018) with a sample design delimited in nature and size to observe differences in trip planning time/horizon between individuals from different countries and between traveller-related or trip-related determinants. These studies also differ in how travel planning time/horizon is defined and operationalized.…”

“…There is empirical evidence prior to COVID-19 that cultural differences and specifically UA influence travel behaviour (Dolnicar, 2007;Litvin et al, 2004;Money & Crotts, 2003;Woodside & Ahn, 2007). However, these studies focus more on how the cultural background influences risk avoidance in the pre-travel stage, i.e., in the planning time frame, trip duration, and travel style, than on travel intention (Backhaus et al, 2022;Rahman et al, 2018). Studies assume that the COVID-19 pandemic affected tourists homogenously, which fails to identify the impact of sociodemographic and regional background differences, such as the impact of cultural values when travel planning (Zheng et al, 2022).…”

“…The literature has paid attention to how uncertainty avoidance (UA) affects both the process of searching information and the type of sources used. However, few studies analyse how UA affects the timing of planning trips, and the results achieved to date are inconclusive (Backhaus, Heussler, & Croce, 2022). According to the motivation protection theory, tourists manage their health risk perception according to their beliefs about health and their own risk prevention behaviour patterns (Quintal, Lee, & Soutar, 2010;Verkoeyen & Nepal, 2019).…”

“…A thorough understanding of travellers' planning processes and their behaviour resulting from high-risk perceptions can help DMOs prioritise international demand and to determine marketing strategies. To comprehend the complexity in travel planning, it is necessary to understand travel planning horizons across countries and cultures (Backhaus et al, 2022), especially as the risk of viral infection continues to play an important role in health-preventive behaviours, such as travel avoidance (Huang, Dai, & Xu, 2020). To our knowledge, no studies have those essential aspects together as a measure to reactivate tourist demand.…”