Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp.

6–23, 2009
0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Printed in Great Britain
www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2008.09.005

TOURIST HESITATION
IN DESTINATION DECISION MAKING
Jehn-Yih Wong
Ching Yeh
Ming Chuan University, R.O.C.

Abstract: Tourist behavior has always been a central issue in the tourism literature. Research
in this area has long focused on destination choices and purchase intentions. Most tourism
products are accompanied by discounts or extra services designed to stimulate
consumption. Tourist hesitation implies failure to stimulation for managers and causes tour-
ists to miss certain products and services with unexpectedly lower price or higher quality.
Therefore, this study tries to clarify the relationships among tourist risk perception, tourist
knowledge, and hesitation. Based on a structural equation modeling of data from 504 tour-
ists, tourist risk perception positively influences hesitation but tourist knowledge can moder-
ate this relationship. Finally, comprehensive management implications for practitioners are
discussed. Keywords: tourist risk perception, tourist knowledge, hesitation. Ó 2008 Elsevier
Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
The year 2007 has started on a higher-than-expected note for global
tourism. From January through April, international tourist arrivals world-
wide rose by over 6% to 252 million, representing an additional 15 mil-
lion arrivals as against the same period in 2006 (WTO 2007). Though
travel is more popular than before, destination managers still worry be-
cause their locations’ attractiveness seems to be spinning away even as
they watch (Plog 2001:13). In practice, they usually question: ‘‘why do
tourists hesitate or delay, even change their destination- and itinerary-re-
lated decisions?’’ Yet, for a long time, the research focus has been on fac-
tors influencing destination choices and purchasing intentions instead
of finding the reasons and solutions for tourist hesitation.
Undoubtedly, tourist behavior and decision making has always been
a central issue in the tourism management literature (Papatheodorou
2001). Numerous studies identified various factors causing people to
visit a destination (Um and Crompton 1990; Crompton and Ankomah

Jehn-Yih Wong, is the associate professor, Graduate School of Management, Ming Chuan
University, Taipei, Taiwan. He continues his research interests in decision making analysis,
data mining and consumer behavior, and he has published articles in Tourism Management,
Journal of Air Transport Management, The Service Industries Journal and Transportation Journal.
Email <jywong@mail.mcu.edu.tw; jywongkimo@yahoo.com.tw>. Ching Yeh, Ph.D. Candidate,
Graduate School of Management, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Her research
interests include tourism marketing and destination management, and she has an article
accepted by Society and Leisure (Loisir & Societe). Email <ching0137@yahoo.com.tw>.

6
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 7

1993; Nadeau, Heslop, O’Reilly, and Luk 2008) which basically can be
categorized by pull and push factors (Crompton 1979; Dann 1977;
Uysal and Jurowski 1994; Yoon and Uysal 2005; Beerli, Meneses, and
Gil 2007). Subsequently, preceding research discovered other influenc-
ing factors to build travel models, such as tourist characteristics
(Morley 1994; Papatheodorou 2001), destination preferences and
awareness (Goodrich 1978), race (Philipp 1994), nationality (Pizam
and Sussmann 1995), attitudes (Um and Crompton 1990), and other
marketing and consumer variables (Mühlbacher and Botschen 1988).
Yet, these models are similar in that they are based on past travel expe-
riences, motivations, demands, preferences and lifestyles, and then use
these traits to explain the evoked set of tourists, the final destination
choice and other behavioral outcomes. Although the research models
went to great lengths to extract elements of tourist behavior and deci-
sion making, from the perspective of decision making theory, one sec-
tion is still not linked up—hesitation.
In fact, decisions in the trip-planning phase are typically being modi-
fied, sometimes even completely revamped; some factors easily affect
tourists making destination decisions, such as issues related to health,
safety, time, expenditure and travel distance (Bansal and Eiselt 2004).
And in the final vacation-decision phase, travel risk would also change
tourists’ minds (Boshoff 2002) when insufficient information makes
consumers uneasy about their expected experience quality. Considering
the intangibility of tourism products, tourists usually perceive uncer-
tainty surrounding future purchase outcomes (Hsu and Lin 2006); fur-
thermore, given the seasonality of the tourism industry, tourists will miss
some tourism products with preferred price and itinerary details if they
do not purchase at one certain time. Though they are provided similar
purchase opportunities in the future, they may purchase products with
unexpected price and items. Thus tourists typically face a dilemma- they
want the products or services possibly that match their needs, but are
also afraid of making wrong decisions and getting a bad purchase expe-
rience. Hence, tourists hesitate to make the final decision.
In decision making theory, hesitation is considered as a decision
making style that it is a more stable characteristics of the decision
maker in addition to a habitual behavior (Thunholm 2004:932).
Therefore, the tourist’s personality that is probed by destination behav-
ior models is not appropriate to explain tourist hesitation as they are
homogeneous. Moreover, other concepts, such as tourist motivation
and benefits sought, that are probed by destination behavior models
are either not appropriate to explain tourist hesitation because they
are factors causing tourists to visit a destination. Instead of these con-
cepts, the use of tourist knowledge is more central to informed deci-
sions and policymaking (Xiao and Smith 2007:310); it is essential to
understand tourists knowledge for marketing management decisions,
designing effective communication, campaigns, and service delivery
(Gursoy and McCleary 2004:353).
However, empirical evidence concerning how tourist risk perception
influences consumers’ hesitation in destination decision making is
scant, leaving some vital issues unresolved in this important research
8 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

arena. It either does not specify how tourist knowledge modifies the
relationship between tourist risk perception and hesitation. Existing
behavioral research has suggested that if consumers possess a higher
level of product knowledge, it is possible that they will be more certain
and confident in making their purchasing decisions (Berger and
Mitchell 1989:277), and higher levels of product knowledge are better
predictors of behavioral intention than attitudes based on low levels of
product knowledge (Chiou 2000:107). Many tourists value the informa-
tion essential because it enables them to reduce uncertainty if they are
planning a vacation (Gursoy and McCleary 2004:356). For the above
reasons, this study attempts to explore the roles and positions of tourist
risk perception, tourist knowledge, and hesitation in tourist decision
making theory.

HESITATION
The concept of ‘‘hesitation’’ has not been clearly defined in previous
studies, with the only exception being the study of Cho, Kang, and
Cheon (2006) where it is defined as postponing or deferring product
purchases by having additional processing time before making final
product-purchase decisions. Both postponing behavior and avoidance
behavior may be invoked to explain why consumers hesitate to pur-
chase. Although both concepts are related to hesitation, the concept
of avoidance behavior or postponing behavior still cannot fully account
for hesitation. Hesitation belongs to decision making styles and is
based on the hypotheses different from those mentioned by early deci-
sion making research. The further explanations are:
The term of decision making style is closely related to that of cogni-
tive style. Both often refer to individual thinking practices central to
the decision process (Thunholm 2004:932). These basically can be cat-
egorized as intuitive, analytical modes (Sjöberg 2003:18) and combina-
tions of intuitive and analytical modes or other more detailed modes
(French, West, Elander, and Wilding 1993). For examples, Arroba
(1977) devised six style types—emotional, intuitive, rational, hesitant,
compliant, and no-thought falling along an active-passive continuum.
Up to now, the conceptual framework in decision making style re-
search was not clear and there did not exist useful instruments that syn-
thesized data from all the studies in the decision making style research
area (Scott and Bruce 1995; Thunholm 2004). However, the classifica-
tions and functions of decision making styles have been frequently dis-
cussed since 1954 (Meehl 1954; Denes-Raj and Epstein 1994; Sjöberg
2003) and there is probably no general accepted opinion (Sjöberg
2003:18). But one thing is assured that decision making styles would
be affected by purchase situations and environments, such as the risk.
And this view apparently differs from the views of early decision making
theory.
Early decision making research mainly assumes that consumers be-
have rationally and they are primary interested in value maximization,
having specific preferences consistent with their choice among alterna-
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 9

tives (Josiam and Hobson 1995:45). However, when choices involve

risk, real life decision makers systematically violate the key behavioral
assumptions of subjective expected utility theory (Roehl and Fesenma-
ier 1992:17). In other words, they often delay or quit making decisions
(Dhar 1997). And the behavior of delay in making decisions is defined
as hesitation in Cho et al (2006) study of online consumer hesitation.
Furthermore, the hesitation scale comprises difficulties associated
with the initiation of an intended activity and its hypothesis is that peo-
ple are less likely to form clear, polarized views of controversial issues,
show more ambivalence and thus are less inclined to initiate decision-
making related behavior; some evidence, as reported by Thompson
and Zanna (1995), show that personal fear of invalidity is conceptually
related to hesitation, because it is concerned with errors and negative
consequences of a decision, which manifests itself in a hesitation to de-
cide (Hänze 2001:694). It also means that personal fear of invalidity
(i.e. risk perception) should be treated as the main individual variable
of hesitation instead of other factors (Cho et al 2006:262).
Dhebar (1996:37) concluded that consumer perceived risk can make
a consumer regret a previous purchase, hesitate over any new pur-
chase, and agonize over similar purchases in the future. But this view-
point lacks any related empirical evidence and there is no empirical
study to explore the relationship between tourist risk perceptions
and hesitation in tourism literature. As tourists become more sophisti-
cated in their vacationing behavior, research must continue to become
more sophisticated to explain this behavior (Moutinho 1987:5), there-
fore this issue needs to be discussed deeply.

TOURIST RISK PERCEPTION

Theoretical support for tourist risk perception stems from Ander-
son’s (1981) information integration theory (IIT) and Roger’s
(1975) protection motivation theory (PMT) (Sönmez and Graefe
1998:172). IIT proposes that individuals form psychophysical and value
judgments according to complex decision making steps, and that those
judgments are influenced by the amount and contents of received
information. PMT focuses on three cognitive processes individuals
experience in a risky decision process and thus the likelihood of engag-
ing in protective behavior, such as risk avoidance, is positively related
to the availability of information. Together, IIT and PMT imply that fu-
ture travel behavior would be influenced by images of safety and risk
that individuals have of regions (Sönmez and Graefe 1998:172).
Higher risk is associated with decreased visitations so it’s necessary to
reduce the degree of risk (Floyd and Pennington-Gray 2004; Sönmez,
Apostolopoulos, and Tarlow 1999). Yet, as the risk is derived from two
traits of tourism products—intangibility and inseparability (Hsu and
Lin 2006), it is impossible to eliminate the risk. However, it may be
hoped that perceived tourist risk can be reduced if advance warnings
can be obtained through risk evaluations (Tsaur, Tzeng, and Wang
1997:797). Therefore, risk perceptions of tourists have become even
10 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

more important in their decision making (Floyd and Pennington-Gray

2004:1051). The concept of risk perception most often used by con-
sumer researchers defines risk in terms of the consumer’s perceptions
both of the uncertainty and the magnitude of the possible adverse con-
sequences (Dowling and Staelin 1994; Cho et al 2006).
Previous tourism research about risk perceptions mostly focuses on
bases of tourist segmentation (Roehl and Fesenmaier 1992; Floyd
and Pennington-Gray 2004) or the analytic methodology (Tsaur et al
1997; Hsu and Lin 2006) while others followed consumer behavior re-
search concentrates on tourist choices and the building of decision
making models (Ankomah, Crompton, and Baker 1996; Crompton
1979; Goodrich 1978). However, tourist risk perceptions and safety
are both found to be stronger predictors of avoiding to visit regions
than of planning to visit them (Sönmez and Graefe 1998:171).
It is noteworthy that the literature fails to express the relationship be-
tween risk perception and hesitation except for only a few studies that
have touched on this issue (Cho et al 2006; Hutchinson, Baldwin, and
Oh 2006; Robinson 1992; Priest 1992). Hutchinson et al (2006) exam-
ines the relationship between adolescents’ coping goals and risk behav-
ior consequences. Robinson (1992:53) indicates that sometimes even
risk recreation participants experience feelings of fear toward event
outcomes. Cho et al (2006:262) mentions that risk perception or
uncertainty has been viewed as one of the most critical reasons for
delaying making purchase decisions and as one definition of consumer
hesitation. In their opinion, ‘‘delay’’ also can make consumers de-
crease uncertainty and induce the readiness to decide. Nevertheless,
the online purchasing behavior investigated by Cho et al (2006) still
differs from overseas travel behavior because the overseas travel in-
volves high spending and long-term purchasing. An unknown question
in the tourism field is whether tourist risk perception will positively af-
fect the hesitation or not.
As assumed by ITT and PMT, the less information the tourist pos-
sesses, the more uncertainty attends the results of the decision making.
Tourists are likely to hesitate for self-protection and risk avoidance rea-
sons when they make destination and itinerary related decisions. Based
on previous literature and logical arguments, the following hypothesis
is proposed:
Hypothesis 1: Tourist risk perception will significantly and positively affect
tourist hesitation when making destination and itinerary related decisions.

TOURIST KNOWLEDGE
Tourist knowledge is borrowed from consumer product knowledge
and it is a crucial construct in understanding consumer behaviors such
as information search (Rao and Sieben 1992) and information process-
ing (Rao and Monroe 1988). Traditionally, knowledge has been trea-
ted as a unidimensional construct, most often referred to as product
familiarity or prior knowledge (Alba and Hutchinson 1987; Gursoy
and McCleary 2004); that is, consumers are assumed to have some
amount of experience with information about particular products
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 11

(Alba and Hutchinson 1987:411). Sometimes, familiarity is also re-

ferred to as the concept of subjective knowledge (Gursoy and McCleary
2004; Alba and Hutchinson 1987).
Previous studies have used both subjective and objective measures to
assess the knowledge level of consumers (Park, Mothersbaugh, and
Feick 1994; Cowley and Mitchell 2003) while objective knowledge is
consist of accurate information about the product class stored in
long-term memory and subjective knowledge is people’s perceptions
of what or how much they know about a product class (Park et al
1994). In fact, what people think they know and what they actually
know often do not correspond and subjective product knowledge pro-
vides a better understanding of decision makers’ systematic biases and
heuristics than does objective product knowledge (Park et al 1994;
Park and Lessig 1981). Considering the characteristics of tourist desti-
nation decision making and suggestions from past research, the cur-
rent study measures tourists’ subjective knowledge.
Conceptual and empirical examinations of how tourists gain knowl-
edge have a long tradition in tourism marketing (Gursoy and McCleary
2004; Kerstetter and Cho 2004; Chen and Gursoy 2000; Fodness and
Murray 1999; Vogt and Fesenmaier 1998). Tourists value the destina-
tion-related information acquired because it enables them to reduce
uncertainty when planning a vacation (Gursoy and McCleary
2004:356). In other words, prior knowledge can offset the risk and sat-
isfy the need for uncertainty reduction (Lehto, O’Leary, and Morrison
2004). If a person has low level of product knowledge, the role of sub-
jective norm and perceived behavioral control become more important
in predicting behavioral intention (Chiou 2000:107). Conversely, if
consumers possess a higher level of product knowledge, it is possible
that they will be more certain and more confident in making their pur-
chasing decisions (Berger and Mitchell 1989). Moreover, expert con-
sumers are likely to have a superior knowledge of existing
alternatives; they are also likely to have a superior ability to encode
new information and to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant
information (Jamal and Goode 2001:144). Thereby, the level of con-
sumer product knowledge indeed influences the decision making
behavior.
Accordingly, Berger, Ratchfors, and Haines (1994) further found
that subjective product knowledge can moderate the relationships be-
tween attitude toward the act and purchase intention. Cowley and
Mitchell (2003) examine the moderating effect of product knowledge
on the learning and organization of product information. Both pa-
pers believe that product knowledge is a better moderator when dis-
covering deeper insights about managing the relationships between
consumer attitudes and behaviors. From above discussions, the second
hypothesis emerges:
Hypothesis 2: Tourist knowledge will moderate the positive effect of tourist risk
perception toward hesitation (i.e. the higher level of knowledge possessed by
tourists, the lower their level of risk perception influencing their tendency to
hesitate).
12 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

Conceptual Framework
Based on previous rationales and relevant theory, the current study
attempts to measure three variables: tourist risk perception, tourist
knowledge, and hesitation. Other factors influencing destination deci-
sion making behavior such as time, travel distance, and days spent at
the destination, are simply disincentives to travel but do not lead to
hesitation. They differ from tourist risk perception intrinsically since
tourist risk perception is an implicit personal psychological state.
Those disincentives dissuade tourists from considering overseas travel
in the initial stage of planning, so they are not appropriate to measure
tourist hesitation when making destination decisions. Therefore, those
attributes are excluded from the main research for purifying research
variables. Instead, they are categorized in the research limitations.
Figure 1 delineates the conceptual model of the current study.

Data Collection
An on-site intercept procedure was employed in this research at Tai-
wan Taoyuan International Airport and the respondents for this study
should be tourists who have taken a pleasure overseas group package
tour at least once prior to the survey and may spend another vacation
abroad within the next 5 years (Jang, Morrison, and O’Leary 2002; Mil-
man 1993). Considering the purpose of this current study, a structured
questionnaire was adopted. Prior to the survey, a pre-test was done in
order to check the reliability and content validity of the questionnaire.
The survey itself was conducted daily from December 8 to January 8,
2006. In order to reduce non-response error, some appropriate steps
mentioned by Hsieh and Chang (2006:141) were adapted. First, six
graduate students worked in pairs when conducting the survey. Sec-
ond, prior to the survey, the students were given training in street
survey skills, courteous manner, etc., by the researcher. Finally, sequen-
tially numbered questionnaires, as well as gifts (accommodation cou-
pons from the famous hotel in Yi-lan, Taiwan), were distributed by
the research team as gestures to thank respondents for completing
the questionnaires. In total, 700 questionnaires were distributed and
650 were returned from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Of
those returned questionnaires, 504 were valid and usable. The effective
response rate is thus 72%. Most of the respondents were female

Tourist
knowledge

Tourist risk
Hesitation
perception

Figure 1. The Conceptual Framework

 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 13

(55.4%), 21-30 years old (49.4%), single (60.5%), and had university
degrees (60.7%). The average monthly income was NT$20,001-
40,000 (about US$630-$1,260) (36.3%) and the average frequency of
visiting destinations was 1 time (49.4%).

Measures
The structured survey questionnaire used to collect data contained
four sections: tourist risk perception, tourist knowledge, hesitation,
and nine questions related to tourist demographics. Aside from these
questions on the basic attributes of tourists, the questions all use a Lik-
ert 5-point scale and are pre-tested.
As the purpose of this research, tourist risk perception is defined as
‘‘the degree of perceived uncertainty and possible negative conse-
quences associated with a destination related product purchase’’.
The fifteen-item scale of Floyd and Pennington-Gray (2004)’s scale
was used in this research as it mainly applied to measure tourist risk
perceptions of destinations. Though some items in the original instru-
ment are used to measure tourist risk perceptions toward natural areas
and parks, most items are employed to examine the degree of tourist
risk perceptions toward other destinations and attractions. The degree
of overall tourist risk perceptions is also investigated. According to the
testing results of content validity and exploratory factor analysis, thir-
teen questions are retained for significant factor loadings on the
construct.
According to Alba and Hutchinson (1987), tourist knowledge is de-
fined as ‘‘the degree of tourist self-assessed destination knowledge’’. A
three-item scale was adopted from Gursoy and Gavcar (2003) that is
used to measure the consumer self-assessed knowledge. Higher scores
reflected a greater sense of knowledge sufficiency on the part of the
tourists.
Finally, as this study mainly attempts to examine the behavior of
tourist hesitation, this research modified Cho et al (2006)’s definition
of consumer hesitation as ‘‘postponing or deferring destination and
itinerary related purchases before making a monetary commitment’’
in terms of features of the leisure tourist product. And Friedman
and Mann (1993)s’ six-item scale is adopted to measure the degree
of tourist hesitation in making destination related decisions.

Study Methods
A two-step approach to structural equation modeling (SEM) was
used in this research, as recommended by Anderson and Gerbing
(1988). The first stage of the approach determines the adequacy of
the measurement model before analyzing the structural components
of the model with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory
factor analysis (CFA) while the second stage creates the structural equa-
tion modeling (Lee, Yoon, and Lee 2007; Hwang, Lee, Chen 2005;
Lehto et al 2004).
14 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlationsa

Constructs Mean SD 1 2 3

1 Tourist risk perception 3.16 0.3934 0.91b

2 Tourist knowledge 2.86 0.7737 0.04* 0.87
3 Hesitation 2.89 0.6572 0.56* 0.19* 0.69

*
p < 0.05; a Correlations are estimates from a confirmatory factor measurement model;
b
Bold numbers on the diagonal parentheses are square root of each construct’s AVE value.

Therefore, reliability, validity, and other related tests are examined

subsequently and the means, standard deviations, and correlations
for all variables used in this current study are illustrated above (as
shown in Table 1).

Factor Analysis. A series of exploratory factor analyses were applied to

further purify the measurement indicators; the factor structure of the
study model is proved reliable by the Bartlet’s v2 test, KMO test, and
Cronbach’s a and so on (Lee et al 2007; Hwang et al 2005; Lehto
et al 2004). Varimax rotation was employed to principle components
in order to extract factors on the same scale that failed to exhibit sig-
nificant loading on the construct (latent variable). The EFA was per-
formed on all measurement items of ‘‘tourist risk perception’’,
‘‘tourist knowledge’’, and ‘‘hesitation’’. There are two factors extracted
from items within ‘‘tourist risk perception’’ and one single factor ex-
tracted from items within ‘‘hesitation’’, and ‘‘tourist knowledge’’ with
eigenvalues greater than 1.0 (as shown in Table 2).
Measurement Model. The final measurement model was examined by a
confirmatory factor analysis subsequently (Lee et al 2007; Hwang et al
2005; Lehto et al 2004). The individual item reliability of each con-
struct evaluates whether the measurement model (1) has an R2 value
greater than 0.50; (2) whether the measured variable toward the con-
struct has completely standardized estimates between 0.50 and 0.95,
and whether it is statistically significant; means that the measurement
model reaches the ideal model fit (Bagozzi and Yi 1988). The compos-
ite reliability (CR) of the construct is used to measure the latent vari-
able’s internal consistency. The higher the CR value is, the more
precisely the measures can predict construct reliability. Scholars sug-
gest that the CR value should be greater than 0.60 (Fornell and Larc-
ker 1981; Bagozzi and Yi 1988). Table 3 shows that the R2 of most
variables are higher than or closer to 0.50 and all measured variables
reach the significance level (t-value >1.96). The CR values of all con-
structs are between 0.85 and 0.91. Moreover, an adequate convergent
validity should contain less than 50% average variances extracted
(AVE) (Fornell and Larcker 1981). In other words, the AVE value
should be 0.50 or above. As shown in Table 3, the AVE value for each
construct is 0.50, 0.76, and 0.84.
Besides, Fornell and Larcker (1981) also suggested that discriminant
validity is based on a comparison of squared pair-wise correlations
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 15

Table 2. Results of the EFA

Measures Factor loadinga Cronbach’s a

Tourist risk perception (KMO = 0.659; Bartlet’s v2 = 750.695, 0.8035

p = 0.000)
Psychological risk perception 0.6039
Traveling is risky right now. 0.773
I would feel very comfortable traveling anywhere right now. 0.684
Domestic travel is just as risky as international travel. 0.473
Tourists should avoid visiting some destinations which have 0.468
been attacked.
Vacation travel is perfectly safe. 0.748
I feel nervous about traveling right now. 0.749
Additional security measures at airports make traveling safer. 0.410
Inherent risk perception 0.6012
Travel to nature areas (such as national parks or forests) is 0.693
not risky.
Visiting art galleries, museums are safe tourist activities. 0.666
Visits to other parks and campgrounds should be avoided 0.540
right now.
Safety is the most important attribute a destination can offer. 0.894
Safety is the most serious consideration when I am choosing a 0.917
destination.
Trips to natural area scenic attractions are safer right now. 0.510
Tourist knowledge (KMO = 0.718; Bartlet’s v2 = 310.070, 0.8555
p = 0.000)
Compared to average person, I am familiar with a wide variety 0.878
of vacation destinations.
Compared to my friends, I am familiar with a wide variety of 0.865
vacation destinations.
Compared to people who travel a lot, I am familiar with a 0.844
wide variety of vacation destinations.
Hesitation (KMO = 0.826; Bartlet’s v2 = 413.286, p = 0.000) 0.7961
I avoid making decision when I choosing a destination. 0.749
I put off making decision when I choosing a destination. 0.735
I’d rather someone else make a decision for me so that it 0.723
won’t be my problem.
I prefer to leave decisions to others. 0.695
When I have to make a decision, I wait a long time before 0.656
starting to think about it.
I don’t like to take responsibility for making decisions about 0.639
choosing a destination.

a
All Factor loadings are statically significant, p < 0.05.

between constructs and the AVE value for each construct. The
square root of each construct’s AVE value is given by those bold num-
bers on the diagonal (between 0.69 and 0.91) and the values should be
greater than their correlations with the other constructs (as shown in
Table 1). The correlations between each construct and the other
constructs are listed off the diagonal. Thus, discriminant validity is
achieved.
16 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

Table 3. Results of the Measurement Model

Measures Completely R2 (errors) Construct AVEc

standardized Reliabilityb
estimatesa

Tourist risk perception 0.91 0.84

Psychological risk perception 0.86 0.73(0.049)
(TRP1)
Inherent risk perception (TRP2) 0.57 0.33(0.16)
Tourist knowledge 0.91 0.76
Familiar than average person (TK1) 0.66 0.82(0.19)
Familiar than my friends (TK2) 0.65 0.83(0.26)
Familiar than people who travel a lot 0.62 0.48(0.33)
(TK3)
Hesitation 0.85 0.50
Avoid making destination related 0.60 0.36(0.53)
decisions (H1)
Put off destination related decisions 0.70 0.44(0.43)
(H2)
Let someone else make decisions for 0.70 0.46(0.44)
me (H3)
Prefer to leave decisions to others 0.70 0.46(0.46)
(H4)
Waiting a long time before starting 0.64 0.40(0.48)
to think about make decisions
(H5)
Not like to take responsibility for 0.64 0.41(0.55)
making destination related
decisions (H6)

a
All completely standardized estimates (k) are statically significant, p < 0.05;
b P P P
CR = ( Pk)2(var)/(( Pk)2(var)+ Perrors)) (Jöreskog and Sörbom 1993); c AVE
2 2
(qvc) = ( k )(var)/(( k )(var)+ errors)) (Jöreskog and Sörbom 1993).

Measurement Model Fit. For the adequacy of the theoretical model,

the measurement model indices of constructs are further examined
with confirmatory factor analysis. The v2 value of the measurement
model is significant (v2(40) = 114.63, p < 0.01), which means the the-
oretical model and the empirical data do not fit each other signifi-
cantly (Bagozzi and Yi 1988). However, from results of EFA and
CFA, it is revealed that the measurement model moderately fits the
data. Instead of the v2 value, if the value of NCI (Normed Chi-Square
Index; v2/df) is between 2 and 5, the measurement model would be
acceptable too (Marsh and Hocevar, 1985). The NCI value of this the-
oretical model was 2.87, which suggests a reasonable fit of the mea-
surement model with the data. Other indices also achieve the
standard value, including RMSEA (= 0.061) is higher than 0.08, CFI
(= 0.97), NFI (= 0.96), GFI (= 0.96), AGFI (= 0.93) were above 0.90
and RMR (= 0.040) was below 0.05. To sum up, the adequacy of
the measurement model is good.
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 17

Hypothesis Testing. The structural estimate of 0.55 (t = 8.14) shows that

tourist risk perception had a significant and positive effect on hesita-
tion. The higher tourist risk tourists perceive, the higher their degree
of tourist hesitation in making destination-related decisions. Thus, H1
was supported. Moreover, for testing the hypothesized moderating ef-
fects of tourist knowledge, the invariance analysis of different groups
was applied (Jurowski and Gursoy 2004) and the procedure recom-
mended by Jaccard and Wan (1996) and Bell and Menguc (2002)
was conducted. First, the structural models for high and low tourist
knowledge groups were estimated without across-group constraints
(i.e. the unconstrained model). Then, across-group constraints were
estimated (i.e. constrained model) where the parameter estimates for
high and low tourist knowledge groups were constrained to be equal.
Then the v2 test (i.e. comparison of unconstrained and constrained
models) was used to detect moderating effects. A significant v2 change
between unconstrained model (Dv2(41) = 79.38) and constrained
model (Dv2(42)= 83.68) suggested that the paths were significantly dif-
ferent between the high and low tourist knowledge groups (Ddf = 1,
Dv2 = 4.30 > 3.84, p < 0.05).
The structural path coefficient indicated that there was a highly po-
sitive relationship between tourist risk perception and hesitation in the
low tourist knowledge group (b = 0.88, p < 0.08) (Farmer and Fedor
2001). In the high tourist knowledge group, the structural path coeffi-
cient revealed that there was a lesser positive relationship between tour-
ist risk perception and hesitation (b = 0.33, p < 0.08) (Farmer and
Fedor 2001). In other words, tourist knowledge lessened the influence
of tourist risk perception on hesitation and supported H2 (Bell and
Menguc 2002; Jurowski and Gursoy 2004).

CONCLUSION
This study attempts to answer about why tourists hesitate or delay, or
even change their destination and itinerary decisions. Therefore, this
work investigates some concepts from the literature on tourist risk per-
ception, tourist knowledge, and hesitation by establishing and testing a
structural model. The research results clearly show that tourist risk per-
ception has a positive effect on hesitation, and tourist knowledge mod-
erates this highly positive relationship.
Previous studies have already discussed tourist decision making
behavior in detail, with the issue of hesitation being the only area that
has thus far been neglected. Based on consumer purchase decision
making and behavioral theory, tourist risk perception is assumed to
be the main independent variable influencing hesitation in the current
study. Also, the above relationship has been relatively neglected by pre-
ceding research. Although tourist risk is difficult to eliminate, previous
researchers have recommended that tourism practitioners enhance
tourist willingness to go abroad by reducing their perception of risk.
However, few of them have considered the method of reducing tourist
risk perception. Therefore, this study applies tourist knowledge to
18 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23

modify the influence of tourist risk perception on hesitation. The

empirical results agree with the conclusions of Cho et al (2006) that
the higher the risk consumers perceive when making a purchase deci-
sion, the more likely they are to hesitate in their decision making. One
possible explanation in the field of tourism is that tourists cannot con-
firm product quality during decision making because of the intangibil-
ity of tourism-related products, thus leading to them having difficulty
deciding, and even tending to consider altering their choices that have
already been made.
However, this current study differs from that of Cho et al (2006) in
terms of theoretical framework with the moderating solution of subjec-
tive product knowledge. Two main perspectives are identified based on
previous studies: first, that subjective product knowledge is closely re-
lated to purchasing confidence, and second, that the determinant of
purchase is subjective product knowledge rather than objective prod-
uct knowledge. Based on the results, once tourists believe they really
understand one certain destination, the influence of tourist risk per-
ception on hesitation is reduced; tourists then have increased certainty
regarding visiting that place and find it easier to make the associated
decisions. This finding not only supports the results of previous studies
but also confirms the role of played by subjective product knowledge in
tourist behavior and decision making theory.
Generally, hesitation is widely misconceived if it is assumed that no
losses occur when tourists hesitate to make decisions regarding destina-
tions and itineraries. However, for tourism practitioners, tourist hesita-
tion creates difficulties in convincing consumers to make immediate
purchase decisions and increasing the possibility of potential clients
shifting to other travel agents, then, negatively impacting the sales per-
formance. Furthermore, from the perspective of tourists themselves,
hesitating is likely to result in them missing the desired trip owing to
the seasonality of tourism products, although they may be able to select
similar trips provided by other travel agents with different prices and
itinerary items. Yet, doing this requires them to spend more time
and effort searching for information and making new decisions. There-
fore, tourism practitioners should devote themselves to decreasing the
degree of tourist hesitation.
However, tourism operation and marketing efforts are currently fo-
cused on technology and web interface design instead of face-to-face
sales service. Tourists can obtain clearer information on destinations
and itineraries through web interface, but this method of presentation
naturally results in doubts regarding whether the contents of the web
pages accurately reflect the real products. If tourism managers cannot
sincerely discuss the details of trips with tourists face to face during
their initial meeting, it will be more difficult to reduce tourist hesita-
tion. This study suggests that tourism managers should enhance tourist
subjective knowledge of destinations-related items using different ap-
proaches and offering as much tangible information as possible. The
regular soliciting travel-related article competitions and relevant quiz
contests can be adopted in sales promotion with its strong influence
on consumers. Moreover, practicing managers should strive to answer
 J.-Y. Wong, C. Yeh / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 6–23 19

questions from those confused tourists rather than ignoring them or

treating them as trouble makers or awkward customers.
Finally, this study also proposes avenues for continued research. Hes-
itation is one of decision making styles originally and decision making
style is not only a habitual behavior pattern but a more stable character-
istic of the decision maker (Thunholm 2004:932). Hesitating tourists
represent fish that have not yet been caught by the nets of tourism man-
agers. Further research thus is urgently needed on market segmenta-
tion, applying hesitation to further extract features of such specific
market segments and developing effective promotion approaches.
Another avenue for extending this study would be to analyze tourist
psychological trade-offs using hesitation as the antecedent variable of
ambivalence base on Hänze (2001). The research model may further
examine the destination decision making behavior and psychological
processes associated with ambivalence or other psychological variables.
This work considers subjective tourist knowledge as the only modera-
tor. The above suggestions regarding future research directions stem
from the limitations of this study as well as the desire to elicit manage-
ment insights examining whether the objective tourist knowledge
yields different results from those of the research model or not. More-
over, as tourist distance, time, day spent at the destination, tourist moti-
vation, benefits sought also have great influences on tourist decision
making, the relationships among those vital issues bearing on tourist
hesitation deserve future consideration.

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Submitted 5 March 2008. Resubmitted 26 June 2008. Accepted 17 september 2008

Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Abraham Pizam

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com