A typology of tourist information search strategies

Abstract

This research examined how tourists make systematic use of the information available to them for vacation planning. The literature suggests and the study findings provide sup-port for the idea that tourists ’ choices of information sources represent discrete information search strategies with under-lying spatial, temporal, and operational dimensions. Multi-dimensional scaling, cluster analysis, and canonical dis-criminant analyses of visitor data converge to provide evidence that tourists can be segmented by the information sources used in planning their trips, supporting the targeting of destination information to search customer niches. Vacations stimulate a variety of search behaviors, and travelers have access to numerous and varied information sources to aid their trip planning. The literature suggests that the search for information used to plan leisure travel is likel