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Information Search and Trip Planning Behaviour of International and Domestic Four Wheel Drive Travellers in Central Australia

Schmallegger, Doris A. and Carson, Dean B. (2008). Information Search and Trip Planning Behaviour of International and Domestic Four Wheel Drive Travellers in Central Australia. In: Richardson, Scott, Fredline, Liz, Patiar, Anoop and Ternel, Megan CAUTHE 2008: Tourism and Hospitality Research, Training and Practice; "Where the 'Bloody Hell' Are We?", Gold Coast, OLD, 11-14 February 2008.

Document type: Conference Paper

IRMA ID 78669150xPUB9
Author Schmallegger, Doris A.
Carson, Dean B.
Title Information Search and Trip Planning Behaviour of International and Domestic Four Wheel Drive Travellers in Central Australia
Conference Name CAUTHE 2008: Tourism and Hospitality Research, Training and Practice; "Where the 'Bloody Hell' Are We?"
Conference Location Gold Coast, OLD
Conference Dates 11-14 February 2008
Conference Publication Title Proceedings of the 18th Annual Council of Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE) Conference
Editor Richardson, Scott
Fredline, Liz
Patiar, Anoop
Ternel, Megan
Place of Publication Gold Coast, OLD
Publisher Griffith University
Publication Year 2008
ISBN 978-1-921291-33-3   (check CDU catalogue  open catalogue search in new window)
Start Page 467
End Page 476
Total Pages 10
HERDC Category E1 - Conference Publication (DEST)
Abstract Understanding how tourists acquire knowledge, develop vacation plans and make travel decisions is one of the most critical tasks facing tourism businesses and destination marketing organisations in developing effective communication strategies. Gaining a detailed knowledge about the trip planning behaviour of a specific target market is, however, very complicated and challenging. Numerous studies have focused on the analysis of tourist information search behaviour and have proposed a range of theoretic frameworks and general approaches to understand this complex process. In practical terms, the most important variables to understand the information search behaviour of a particular market appear to be the timing of trip planning and information search, the sources of information used at different stages of the trip, and the contribution of these sources to decision-making. This paper reports on the findings from a recent study which analysed the information search behaviour of international and domestic independent 4WD travellers in central Australia. The research looked for differences between the international and domestic markets in terms of information search and trip planning, and tried to match search behaviours to some commonly used models. The results emphasise the predominant importance of in-trip information search among independent traveller markets. At the same time, it argues that existing theoretic models of tourist information search do not adequately account for spontaneous in-trip decisions.
Keyword Information search
Independent travellers
4WD tourism
Word of mouth
Trip planning
Description for Link Link to published version
URL http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=993386264026910;res=IELBUS
 
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Created: Wed, 13 May 2009, 10:43:55 CST by Sarena Wegener