Choice overload in holiday destination choices

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to investigates whether and why choice overload (CO) occurs when people select a vacation destination.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a two-group (large choice-set vs small choice-set) between-subject factorial design. Dependent variables representing CO-effects are post-choice satisfaction and regret. Choice confusion and choice uncertainty are mediators.

Findings

Relative to people choosing from a small destination portfolio, people who choose from a large portfolio are less satisfied and more regretful about their choice. Choosing from a large choice-set confuses people, which then makes them less certain about their choice, and subsequently, have less satisfaction and more regret about their decision.

Practical implications

A critical consideration is essential when providing a number of destination choices to tourists. A few destinations should be offered in a travel portfolio. If the number of destination offers must remain large, travel agents should cluster these offers based on a market segmentation analysis to ease the decision-making process for travellers.

Originality/value

The findings add to evidence of CO-effects to the current literature of travel destination choice, and contribute to CO literature by showing evidence of CO-effects in complex service contexts, especially in holiday destination choices. This study is the first to provide evidence of CO-effects at the early stages of the travel destination decision-making process; it uses hypothetical destinations to avoid potential confounds associated with real destinations; and it measures CO-effects via post-choice satisfaction and regret. In addition, while the only available study on CO in tourism (Park and Jang, 2013) does not explain why CO-effects occur, this research provides and explains the psychological underlying process of the CO phenomenon in destination choice-making.

Citation

Thai, N.T. and Yuksel, U. (2017), "Choice overload in holiday destination choices", International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 53-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCTHR-09-2015-0117