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product'). Context, and more particularly the socio-cultural environment and the consumer's
level of involvement, is taken into account in order to better understand behavioural differences
between individuals and between choice situations.
The cultural complexity of consumer behaviour and consumption phenomena lies at the
core of CCT researchers' interest. CCT does not present culture as a homogeneous system of
collectively shared beliefs, meanings, values, and lifestyles. CCT rather tries to account for the
heterogeneous distribution of meanings and the plurality of cultural groupings that coexist in
the socio-historical framework of globalization and market capitalism. Finally, the postmodern
approach explores objects and issues that were neglected by consumer research thus far. Such
new interests include the affective dimensions of choices (fun, feelings, fantasies . . .) and the
experiential aspects of consumption. In the same way, postmodern researchers bring into light
the symbolic dimension of many purchases and possessions, and the consumption processes
that contribute to consumers' identity positions and broader meanings of existence as human
beings. Issues of meaning and sense-making then become central to understanding tourist
consumer behaviour.
Theorizing tourist decision-making
Investigating purchase decisions (product, brand, store, mode of payment . . .) is worthwhile as
this information provides companies with the necessary knowledge about consumers, which
enables them to sell their goods and services effectively. The consumer's fi nal purchase is only
the visible part of the iceberg, since it is the materialization of a whole DM process thought
to start with the recognition of a problem (need). Several theories have been developed to
explain consumer DM, borrowing from the general paradigms discussed in the previous section.
The holidaymaker's DM process has been investigated in a substantial number of papers and
monographs in the last three decades. The great majority of these are restricted in scope since
they are limited to some specifi c aspects of holiday DM, such as motivation (Fodness 1994;
Mansfeld 1992), information search (Fesenmaier and Vogt 1992; Fodness and Murray 1997;
Mäser and Weiermair 1998), or family DM (Jenkins 1978; Nichols and Snepenger 1988; van
Raaij 1986). However, a few general conceptualizations have been proposed. In his review,
Decrop (2006) makes a distinction between micro-economic, cognitive and interpretive
DM models.
Micro-economic models use traditional demand theory in order to explain tourism behaviour.
The rational holidaymaker tries to maximize the utility of his/her choices under the constraint
of his/her budget. Tourism demand analysis has benefi ted from considerable interest (e.g. Rugg
1973; Morley 1992; Papatheodorou 2000; and Seddighi and Theocharous 2002). In contrast,
cognitive models do not pay attention to the price-demand relationship but to the mental
processes that underlie the DM process. Two types of cognitive models may be identifi ed:
structural and process models. Most of those models lean heavily on classical buyer behaviour
theory and postulate a (bounded) rational and hierarchical tourist DM.
Structural models focus on relationships between inputs (traveller and marketing variables)
and outputs (preferences, intentions, and choices). Most of the time such relationships are
presented as an evolution of tourism alternatives in consideration sets (Crompton 1977; Um and
Crompton 1990; Woodside and Lysonski 1989). The consideration set (evoked set) comprises
all the alternatives the holidaymaker contemplates for his/her holiday in the choice process.
It is part of the perceived opportunity set (awareness set), which includes all the alternatives
known to the holidaymaker. As the latter is not omniscient, the awareness set is itself only a part
of the total opportunity set, which entails all possible alternatives (Woodside and Sherell 1977;
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