The Infosource Scale: A Measure to Assess the Importance of External Tourism Information Sources
Information sources have long been considered an important variable in understanding consumer purchasing behaviors. Although research on information sources has been performed in a wide range of social disciplines, this variable has never been operationalized in a services marketing context. In this paper we develop a scale that measures the importance of information sources to the selection of tourism services. Insights from an empirical study of 350 tourists indicates that this multi-dimensional scale incorporates five types of information sources: 1) media, 2) institutional brochures, 3) commercial brochures, 4) travel agents, and 5) internet. Discussion centers on implications of this scale to theory and managerial development of tourism and services strategies. Directions for future research are also presented.
This report provides a summary of a workshop on forecasting in travel behavior research. The scope of the workshop focused on the examination of predictive models from experimental and operational perspectives. Three key issues on complexity, measurability, and transferability over time were given as the guiding directions for discussion.