Resumen de Assessing Structure in the Pleasure Trip Planning Process

Daniel R. Fesenmaier, Jiann-Min Jeng

• The goal of this study was to examine the structure of the trip decision-making process and to explore how travel decisions evolve during the course of trip planning. The results indicate that the travel decision-making/planning process can be decomposed into a number of constituent “subdecisions" or facets. Explication of these component parts seems to indicate three basic levels of decisions: (1) core decisions, which are planned in detail well in advance of the trip; (2) secondary decisions, which appear to be considered prior to the trip but “flexible" to accommodate the possibility of change; and (3) en route decisions, which are, in the main, not considered until the traveler is actually en route and actively seeking alternatives. Decisions made in an earlier stage appear to condition decisions made in later stages. However, the relationships among component decisions at each level are undetermined and should be explored in future studies. In addition, relationships between level and detail of the trip and a variety of independent variables such as trip length and type and knowledge level should be examined.