Consumption Vision, Emotion and the Tourism Consumer's Purchase Decision

Abstract

One aspect of planning or deciding on where to vacation may rely on nonrational thought and be influenced by imaginative processes and the associated emotions. Previous research investigating tourists’ decision processes suggests that tourists’ visions of their future consumption experience may have a substantial influence on both their level of product interest and final purchase decision (Etzioni, 1988; Goosens, 2003; Macinnis & Price, 1987; Miller, Hardjimarcou & Miciak, 2000). For this reason, an understanding of the effects of various types of imagery-evoking stimuli on tourism consumers’ visionary responses to advertising material is of considerable importance to tourism destination marketers. To date, there has been limited research investigating the usage of various elements of advertising stimuli and resulting effectiveness in evoking elaborate consumption visions for holiday travel decision-making. In addition, despite previous revelations that elaborate consumption visions can heighten the consumer’s emotional involvement with the product and this may, consequently, expedite their decision process, previous research has given limited attention to the impact that these cognitive and affective responses have on the tourism consumer’s purchase decision. Guided by these shortfalls in the literature, the primary aims of this thesis were to first, investigate the main and interaction effects of three types of proven imagery evoking stimuli commonly used in print advertisements namely – pictorial images, concrete words and instructions to imagine, and identify their most effective combination in evoking elaborate and quality consumption visions. Second, the research aimed to examine the influence of consumption vision and subsequent emotional responses on the tourism consumer’s final purchase decision.