culture gold

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Tourism Management 24 (2003) 191202

The effect of uncertainty avoidance on information search, planning,

and purchases of international travel vacations

R. Bruce Moneya,*, John C. Crottsb

a International Business Program Area, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USAbHospitality and Tourism Management, School of Business and Economics, College of Charleston, 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424-0001, USA

Received 3 March 2001; accepted 13 May 2002

Abstract

Academics and marketers know relatively little about how national culture affects the way people plan and spend in the $448

billion international travel and tourism economy. From a matched sample of 1042 German and Japanese visitors to the US, this

research explores the relationship between the cultural dimension of uncertainty (or risk) avoidance with information search, trip

planning time horizons, travel party characteristics (e.g. size of group) and trip characteristics (e.g. length of stay). Results show that

consumers from national cultures characterized by higher levels of uncertainty avoidance use information sources that are related to

the channel (e.g., travel agent), instead of personal, destination marketing-related, or mass media sources; they also more frequently

purchase prepackaged tours, travel in larger groups, and stay on average a shorter time and visit fewer number of destinations.

Contrary to expectations, they do not spend more time making the decision to travel or making their airline reservations.

Implications for future research and marketing practice (e.g., segmentation and standardization) are also discussed.

r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: National culture; Information search; Travel and tourism

1. Introduction

Where consumers search for and acquire information

germane to their purchase decisions is a large and

important research stream (cf. Moorthy, Ratchford, &

Talukdar, 1997; Stigler, 1961; Urbany, 1986). The kind

of search consumers undertake has significant implica-

tions for the kind of purchases they eventually make.

Despite the importance of the topic and the increasingly

international nature of marketing, we know very little

about how national culture influences the search process

(Webster, 1992). Do the cultural traits and practices

of some buyers have a differential effect on their

search behavior and, subsequently, their eventual plans

and purchases? The answer to this question has

important implications both for marketers who struggle

with issues of segmentation and target marketing

and for the ongoing debate between standardizing

or segmenting the marketing function (Aaker &

Joachimsthaler, 1999).

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence

of culture on the process and outcome of external

information search and certain purchase decisions

subsequent to the search. The specific dimension of

culture examined is Hofstedes (1980) uncertainty

avoidance, a measure of intolerance for risk. We focus

on this dimension because it has been shown to influence

information search behavior (Dawar, Parker, & Price,

1996) and its effects are well demonstrated in the studys

substantive context, that of international tourism, one

of the worlds largest economic sectors and by definition

global in nature. From 1988 to 1997, global tourism

expenditures more than doubled from $204:7 billion to

$447:7 billion (World Tourism Organization, 1998). In

1998, Americans alone spent $72:3 billion on travel

abroad and international visitors to the US purchased

more than $91 billion of goods and services, contribut-

ing to an $18:7 billion trade surplus for the country. This

spending supported over one million US jobs and

generated over $9 billion in federal, state and local

taxes. Currently, the US ranks third as the worlds most

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-803-777-0140; fax: +1-803-777-

3609.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R.B. Money), [email protected]

(J.C. Crotts).

0261-5177/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 5 7 - 2


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popular destination behind France and Spain (Tourism

Industries, 1999).

Given the importance of international tourists to

corporate profits as well as nations balances of trade, it

is not surprising that companies and nations alike

compete fiercely for their share of the market. A

successful international marketing program is oftendependent on the sophistication of its segmentation

and target marketing strategies in various countries and

cultures. Notwithstanding, Dimanche (1994) suggests

that the lack of cross-national tourism research is not

only due to a lack of resources, but often a misunder-

standing of the value and benefits of cross-cultural

research as well as a degree of ethnocentrism and

ignorance concerning cultural differences. This paper

answers several calls for more international tourism

research in responding to the questions addressed here

(Dimanche, 1994; Pizam & Reichel, 1996).

This paper is organized as follows. The theoretical

domain of information search is explored, along with

the theories of national culture. In the travel context,

hypotheses and research propositions concerning in-

formation search and buyer behavior in the form of

planning, travel and trip characteristics are then

presented. The studys data collection, analysis, and

results are then discussed, along with implications for

academics and marketers.

2. Conceptual background and hypothesis development

The conceptual model for the study is presented in

Fig. 1. Basically, the uncertainty avoidance dimension

of national culture is expected to influence the type of

external search, trip planning behavior, as well as certain

travel party characteristics and trip characteristics.

2.1. Information search

The concept of search dates back to Stiglers (1961)theory of the economics of information, i.e., consumers

will continue expending resources for search until the

utility gained from the search exceeds the cost. Since

then, the consumer behavior literature has explored

various concepts related to search and its implications

for marketers. For example, buyer uncertainty affects

both knowledge and choice search, in that buyers who

are more certain about choice and less certain about

knowledge tend to search less and respond less to

changes in search costs and utility than buyers who are

less certain (Urbany, 1986; Urbany, Dickson, & Wilkie,

1989). Search cost and utility have been modeled asantecedents to motivation to search, an addition to

Stiglers model, along with perceived ability to search

(Schmidt & Spreng, 1996). An inverted U-curve

relationship has been found between the amount of

external search and product knowledge (Johnson &

Russo, 1984), as well as experience (Moorthy et al.,

1997), in that the novice and expert alike search less than

one who is moderately informed or experienced. Like-

wise, moderate levels of discrepancy (preconceived

expectations vs. actual attributes) in new product

categorization increase search more than very high

or low levels (Ozanne, Brucks, & Grewal, 1992).

Consumers search more when they are highly accoun-

table for the decision (i.e., must justify it to others) and

Fig. 1. Conceptual model.

R.B. Money, J.C. Crotts / Tourism Management 24 (2003) 191202192


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highly involved in the choice (Lee, Kerr, Kardes, &

Kim, 1999; Laaksonen, 1994). Organizational buyers,

however, who are accountable for their choice decisions,

increase search behavior only in a symbolic or political

sense (Doney & Armstrong, 1996)they only appear to

increase their search because it looks good for the

boss. Search behavior has been examined in a varietyof contexts and domains, including the micro-detail of

how visual display characteristics of advertising, for

example, might affect search (Janiszewski, 1998), a topic

of interest given the explosion of pictorally dependent

Internet retailing formats. Interestingly, recent research

suggests that, in searching for retailers on the Web,

consumers are less likely to patronize retailers repre-

sented by display ads (vs. non-display), contrary to the

positive effect that display ads have in print advertising

(Hoque & Lohse, 1999). Indeed, the context of the

Internet may lend a new perspective on search behavior

theories, including the experiencesearch relationship

(Klein, 1998).

2.2. External vs. internal search

Consumer behavior research has identified two types

of search that buyers engage in as they make purchase

decisions (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1999; Hawkins,

Best, & Coney, 1998). The first is internal information

search, which is basically retrieving decision-relevant

information stored in long-term memory. The internal

information may have been actively acquired at one

time from previous experience and past information

searches or passively through low-involvement learningwhere consumers are repeatedly exposed to marketing

stimuli. The second type of search is external in nature,

sources of information which previously have been

organized into four basic categories: (1) personal (e.g.,

word-of-mouth advice from friends and relatives), (2)

marketer-dominated (e.g., advertisements in print and

electronic media), (3) neutral (e.g., third-party sources

such as travel agents and travel guides), and (4)

experiential sourcesdirect contacts with retailer

(Beatty & Smith, 1987; Assael, 1987; Hawkins et al.,

1998). Many consider the Internet (e.g., World Wide

Web) as a fifth uniquely interactive source of external

information, while others would assign homepages to

marketer-dominated or neutral sources depending upon

their purpose or content. Classifying information

provided by destination marketing organizations is also

controversial (i.e. government tourist offices, state and

city travel offices). Many would categorize them as

neutral sources of information due to third party

position as an intermediary serving the visitor. Still

others would consider them to be a marketer-dominated

source of information, since their reason for existence is

to exclusively promote their destinations and members

to visitor markets for the purpose of generating

overnight stays and visitor spending. For both the

Internet and destination marketing organizations,

the conceptual model of the current research uses the

marketer-dominated classification.

Different kinds of customers in various situations

make different types of information searches. Business-

to-business buyers, for example, rely more on externalsearch than retail customers, because the latter deem the

cost of information search to be higher than do

industrial customers (Mazursky & Hirschman, 1987).

Product category experts engage in more external search

due to knowledge of important choice variables (Brucks,

1985). Even for very important decisions, such as health

care providers for children (or adults) and nursing home

selection for elderly relatives, consumers undertake

relatively little external search (Dove, 1986).

2.3. Information search and the tourism industry

Sources of information acquired through external

search is the focus of this study, because it lends itself to

more manifestation of the studys substantive domain,

that is, how travel plans are made and purchased

by individuals and groups (Crotts, 1999). Some of the

general models of consumer behavior related to

tourism include search behavior, but only tangentially

(Robertson & Kassarjian, 1991). One exception is the

work of Fodness and Murray (1998) that defines three

dimensions of search strategy: (1) spatial, or where the

search takes place (internal vs. external); (2) temporal, or

when it takes place (prepurchase vs. ongoing during the

trip); and (3) operational, that is, whether the informa-tion gathered is contributory (e.g., a travel guide

useful, but insufficient to invoke the final purchase

decision) or decisive (e.g., prior experience with the

destination is enough to convince someone to make a

return visit). It has also been shown that travelers to a

high degree use a combination of certain external

sources, such as word-of-mouth advice and published

travel guides (such as AAAs), for example (Fodness &

Murray, 1999). The external search strategy of travelers,

as with any other consumer group, varies with demo-

graphic and other characteristics of the traveler. Seniors,

for example, are much less likely to engage in active

external search than non-seniors and they tend to buy

more prepackaged tours than non-seniors (Javalgi,

Edward, & Rao, 1992).

2.4. National culture and search behavior

We propose that national culture is another char-

acteristic that may manifest itself in varying approaches

to search and purchase decisions. International tourism,

by its very nature, is one of the most global of all

industries. The desire to get away, the possibility of

visiting foreign destinations, requires the consumer to

R.B. Money, J.C. Crotts / Tourism Management 24 (2003) 191202 193


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search for and plan a coordinated series of events

requiring inputs from a variety of service sectors to

make the trip possible. Without the desired information

the consumer cannot buy, and without cogent commu-

nication the marketer cannot sell.

Besides the important substantive issues in inter-

national tourism, there are also interesting theoreticalreasons to study tourism search behavior in an interna-

tional setting. National culture, one of the many

layers of constructs germane to international market-

ing research (Cavusgil, 1998) has been used as a general

theory (Clark, 1990) to explain differences in marketing

management decision making (Tse, Lee, Vertinsky, &

Wehrung, 1988), global brand image strategies (Roth,

1995), and the effectiveness of emotional appeals

in advertising (Aaker & Williams, 1998). It has also

been shown to influence consumer innovativeness

(Steenkamp, ter Hofstede, & Wedel, 1999), new product

development activity (Nakata & Sivakumar, 1996),

word-of-mouth behavior in industrial services (Money,

Gilly, & Graham, 1998), and buyer behavior in tourism

(Pizam & Reichel, 1996).

National culture has been defined in hundreds of ways

(Erez & Earley, 1993), but one of the most commonly

accepted is Kluckhohns (1954, p. 86) description of

patterned ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting,

acquired and transmitted;ythe essential core of culture

consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and

selected) ideas and especially their attached values. The

most widely utilized dimensions of culture are the five

presented by Hofstede (1980) and his colleagues

(Hofstede & Bond, 1988) from their instrument calledthe Values Survey Module or VSM. Briefly, they are:

power distance (a tolerance for class differentials in

society), individualism (the degree to which welfare of

the individualism is valued more than the group),

masculinity (achievement orientation, competition, and

materialism), uncertainty avoidance (intolerance of risk),

and later, the confucian dynamic, or long-term orienta-

tion (stability, thrift, respect for tradition and the future).

National culture and search have been only loosely

explored together. Norwegian companies in Russia

categorized as innovative were found to conduct more

external search than non-innovative companies. Product

country-of-origin (related to, but arguably different

than culture) apparently does not affect search behavior

in consumers (Chao & Gupta, 1995). Ethnicity, another

related concept may affect search behavior. In one

study, English-language Hispanics were influenced more

by print media sources than Spanish language Hispa-

nics, who were influenced more by radio, billboards,

family, and co-workers (Webster, 1992).

Collectivism, one of Hofstedes (1980) cultural traits,

has been shown to be salient in consumer search

behavior for environmentally friendly products

(Ling-yee, 1997). Moreover, in one of the rare

cross-cultural tourism research studies, Chen (2000)

evoked the collectivism/individualism construct in ex-

plaining the unique preferences for external information

sources used by Japanese, South Korean and Australian

visitors to the US. Specifically, business travelers from

highly collectivistic Japan and Korean societies relied

heavily on tour companies, corporate travel offices,travel guides and advice from friends and relatives; while

business travelers from the individualistic Australian

society preferred gaining their information directly from

the airlines and US state/city travel offices. However, the

collectivism trait was less clear among leisure travelers.

Japanese and Australian leisure visitors showed indivi-

dualistic tendencies in their search strategies while

Korean visitors evoked collectivistic information search

behaviors. As noted by Chen, the collectivist framework

may be too limited in identifying culture-specific search

strategies in a broader cross-cultural context.

The cultural perspective employed in this current

study is Hofstedes uncertainty avoidance measure. This

is because consumers engage in search behavior to

minimize the five types of risk in a purchase decision

(Solomon, 1999): monetary (losing or wasting income),

functional (does not meet the need), physical (personal

illness or injury), social (unfashionable or lowers status),

and psychological (damages self-esteem or engenders

guilt). Indeed, of Hofstedes five cultural dimensions,

uncertainty avoidance (UAI) and power distance have

been shown to influence differences among cultures in

external search behavior (Dawar et al., 1996). Of the

two, UAI was deemed more appropriate to the

substantive domain of travel purchases.Specifically, high UAI cultures are not comfortable

with unstructured situations. They prize structure; they

feel threatened by the unknown and the ambiguous. On

the other hand, medium UAI cultures willingly take

more risk than high UAI cultures. Risk has been

identified as a major concern for international travelers

(Yavas, 1990). Furthermore, interpersonal word-of-mouth

search has been shown to be used by consumers to

decrease risk (Rosen & Olshavsky, 1987). This is consistent

with research that has shown the Japanese firms (a high

uncertainty avoidance culture) use more word-of-mouth

search in sourcing their corporate travel services when

compared to American firms (Money, 2000).

One way to classify the external search available to

travel consumers is whether or not the information is

marketer-dominated, that is, information provided by

hotels, airlines, resorts, and rental car companies, as well

as destination marketing organizations (i.e., nation,

state, city). This information is typically disseminated by

mass media advertising. The other type of information

source, not directly connected with the service delivery

itself (such as a specific destination or hotel company)

would be personal word-of-mouth from friends and

relatives, a neutral third party such as AAA or a travel



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guide, or the travel service channel member such as a

travel agent or tour operator. The key differentiation is

the vested interest of the communicator in selling the

services of a particular destination or firm. The

marketer-dominated information would hold less

credibility, and hence contain more risk. Thus, it is

expected that higher risk avoidance consumers willgather information from one of the higher credibility (to

them, at least) i.e., personal, neutral, or channel sources,

rather than marketer-dominated sources. For example,

the dominance of word-of-mouth influence over other

forms of advertising has been well documented (see

Gilly, Graham, Wolfinbarger, & Yale, 1998 for a

review). This study hypothesizes that high UAI cultures

will try to minimize their risk by using more non-

marketer dominated sources of information:

H1: Consumers from a high uncertainty avoidance

national culture will engage in more external search

from sources that are non-marketer dominated, com-

pared with consumers from a medium uncertainty

avoidance culture, who will use more sources that are

marketer dominated and mass media in nature.

2.5. Research propositions

Subsequent to a consumers search, components of

trip planning, travel party characteristics, and trip

characteristics are also influenced by national culture.

However, since the usage situation theory related to

these phenomena is less developed than that for search

behavior, these relationships are presented as researchpropositions rather than formal hypotheses.

2.5.1. Trip planning

The very nature of international travel requires the

tourist to usually make the decision to go on the trip

well in advance of departure. Other decisions, such as

which airline and hotel(s) to utilize, must also be made

and executed. This study proposes that individuals

socialized in high risk-avoidance societies will tend to

plan their trips longer in advance and make their

reservations (specifically, airline) earlier than consumers

in medium uncertainty avoidance cultures. The higher

levels of uncertainty avoidance that influence the type of

external search might also increase the lead time

consumers take to make their plans. Tversky and Shafir

(1992) showed that buyers who have hard decisions to

make will delay making those decisions. Risk avoiding

people reasonably may be expected to prefer settling

their travel arrangements sooner rather than later:

P1: Consumers of a high uncertainty avoidance

national culture will make their travel plans farther in

advance, compared with medium uncertainty avoidance

consumers.

2.5.2. Travel party characteristics

Relatedly, the type and number of people accompa-

nying a tourist would also be influenced by national

culture. That is, a less risky strategy would be to travel

in large groups in established tours, as opposed to

traveling alone. The influence of social ties in group

decision-making behavior is also relevant here (Brown &Reingen, 1987). Although traveling with people they do

not know, they would share with the group common

interests in the destination, and therefore would not be

putting as much at risk, compared with traveling alone.

We generally expect those consumers of high uncer-

tainty avoidance to travel in larger groups than those of

medium uncertainty avoidance, who will strike out on

their own, so to speak.

P2: The travel parties of consumers from high

uncertainty avoidance cultures will be larger than

the travel parties of medium uncertainty avoidance

consumers, who will tend to travel alone.

2.5.3. Trip characteristics

Lastly, it is expected that risk-averse consumers

will purchase more prepackaged trips and spend less

nights abroad visiting fewer destinations. In terms of

delivery, there are three types of leisure travel services:

fully prepacked (all inclusive price and arrangements

for airfare, hotel, and so on), free and independent

(the components for the trip are purchased by the

consumer separately) and mix and match packages

(e.g., includes airfare and rental car, but not lodging).

Consumer behavior research has shown that in difficult,emotional decisions, buyers will often avoid making the

decision altogether (Luce, Bettman, & Payne, 1997). In

the case of tourism, that may mean buying a packaged

tour, albeit one large, difficult decision, to avoid smaller

but more numerous difficult decisions. Although a

mistake in picking the wrong package might be

costly, most tourists would probably agree that the less

risky alternative is the fully prepackaged plan, with all

of the arrangements tied together for the consumer.

With regards to outbound Japanese and German tourist

markets, these packages are usually put together by

large, well-known firms such as Japan Travel Bureau

and TUI, which is owned by Westdeutsche Landesbank.

In regards to trip duration and the number of

destinations visited, the effects of culture on consumers

variety-seeking behavior appear to be salient (Colton &

Money, 1998). It makes intuitive sense that a risk-

adverse traveler would like to get back to home base and

not stay as many nights away. Even if the trip costs

more, the more adventuresome risk takers, on the other

hand, will tend to stay longer and visit more places while

doing so.

P3: Consumers of a medium uncertainty avoidance

national culture will purchase fewer prepackaged trips,



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will stay longer in the US, and visit more destinations

compared with high uncertainty avoidance consumers.

3. Methods

3.1. Data collection

The data for the study were obtained from the 1996 to

1998 Inflight Survey of Overseas Visitors to the United

States. Annually, the US Department of Commerces

Tourism Industries sponsors a survey where more than

80,000 overseas visitors are presented with a self-

administered questionnaire distributed in-flight by air-

line flight crew personnel prior to departure from the

US. A random cluster sampling procedure is used

whereby all passengers (one per family group), on

randomly selected flights, during a 7 day period each

month are given the survey instrument. At the time of

data collection, about 60 US and foreign airlines were

administering the survey. Response rates were generally

quite high, averaging 58% (Tourism Industries, 1999).

The survey itself is composed of 29 questions and is

available in 11 languages. The purpose of the survey is

to obtain information about travel pattern of overseas

visitors to the US that airlines, hotel companies, as well

as state and city destination marketing organizations

can use in understanding the international tourism

market. Items from the survey related to information

search, planning, travel party and trip characteristics

were used as dependent measures for the current

study.For purposes of the analysis, the data set was limited

to those respondents who indicated their country of

birth was either the Germany and Japan. These

countries were selected for their significance to the US

tourism market (i.e., in 2000, 26% of overseas arrivals

resided in these two nations) but also due to their scores

on Hofstedes uncertainty avoidance index. Japan

ranked seventh out of 50 nations with a UAI score of

92 while Germany ranked 29th with a score of 65.

Thus, Germans were grouped as medium on the UAI

index while Japanese were grouped together under

the high UAI index for comparison purposes, as

detailed in the Measures section below. Although other

nations scored lower on the UAI dimension than

Germany, this country was used because of its

substantive importance to the US travel market (ranked

third as the origin of overseas arrivals to the US) and

their relatively lower score than that of Japan. In

addition, the selection of country ofbirth was made over

country ofcitizenship since the literature has shown that

virtually all of the cultural dimensions of interest are

learned by the age of 10 years and remain relatively

immune to change over the remaining life span

(Hofstede, 1991).

3.2. Matched sample characteristics

The second phase in the sample selection process

delimited the final sample to those visitors who had not

visited the US in the previous five years, whose primary

trip purposes were deemed discretionary (i.e., holidays,

leisure, recreation and sightseeing; visiting friends andrelatives), who were between the ages of 45 and 60 years,

and who were employed in managerial or professional

occupations. Hofstede (1991) suggested that compar-

isons of national cultures between countries should

always be based upon a sample of people of similar

socio-economic groupings. Controlling for the number

of previous visits and trip purpose was also deemed

appropriate since the trip planning characteristics can be

quite different between these groups (Opermann, 1997;

Guy, Curtis, & Crotts, 1990; Gitelson & Crompton,

1994). Delimiting the sample to those who indicated the

main, their trip purpose was two of nine response

categories on the survey instrument was an attempt to

hold constant the influence of trip motives on the

dependent variables in question. The two response

categories selected (i.e., holidays, leisure, recreation

and sightseeing; visiting friends and relatives) are

generally considered the principal travel motivation of

overseas visitors to the US (You, OLeary, Morrison, &

Hong, 2001; Cha, McCleary, & Uysal, 1995). The final

sample derived from this sample selection process was

1042 respondents, composed of 707 Japanese and 335

Germans.

The ability to further delimit the sample to only one

destination or region visited in the US was not possible.Japanese respondents reported a total of 48 different US

destinations as the main destination while among the

German respondents a total of 52 US destinations were

reported. It is interesting to note that New York City,

Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco were four of

the top five destinations for both Japanese and German

respondents. Where they differed was that Honolulu

was the most frequently mentioned main destination for

the Japanese respondents while Washington, DC was

the fifth most frequently indicated destination for

German visitors. Further delimiting the sample to

visitors to these four US destinations would have

reduced the Japanese sub-sample by 62.8% and the

German sub-sample by 79.3%.

3.3. Measures

Although the study did not directly measure the

cultural values of the participants, Hofstedes widely

used index scores were used to classify which members

of the selected cultural groups were of medium and high

UAI. Specifically, those respondents who indicated

they were born in Japan were assigned to the high

uncertainty avoidance group while those born in



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Germany were assigned to the medium uncertainty

avoidance group. Although these measures of national

culture are dated, Hofstede notes that national cultures

change very slowly and when cultures shift,ythey shift

together, so that the differences between them remain

intact (1991, p. 77).

Type of external search, the main dependent variable,

was measured by classifying the responses of the

subjects into the categories of external search (see Table1 for classifications), that is, a response of friends or

relatives was deemed to be a personal source, travel

guides were classified as neutral, and a travel agent

and tour operator were classified as channel members,

all under the non-marketer dominated category. For

the marketer-dominated, mass media category, TV/

radio advertisements, newspaper/magazine ads, in-

formation acquired from government tourist office

and city/state tourist office responses were included.

For the research propositions, trip planning was

composed of two measures: how many days before

departure the decision was made to travel and how

many days before departure the airline reservation was

made. The travel party characteristics variable was

measured by three indicators. The first was whom, if

anyone, the respondent traveled with. For example, the

subject could answer he or she traveled with spouse,

family, business associates, friends, or with a group. The

categories were not mutually exclusive. The second was

the number of adults traveling in the party; the third was

the number of children in the party. The trip character-

istics variable was also measured by three indicators.

First, the subjects answered yes or no to the question,

Was the trip prepackaged? The components that were

included in the package, if applicable, were then noted

by the respondents, such as airfare, rental car, lodging,

guided tours, and so forth. The second indicator of trip

characteristics was the reported number of nights stayed

in the US. The third was the number of US destinations

visited.

4. Results

To test the hypotheses and propositions, a series of

univariate and multivariate statistical procedures were

employed, including discriminant analysis and ANOVA,

to determine how uncertainty avoidance influenced

search behavior, trip planning, travel party character-

istics, and trip characteristics. A series of canonical

discriminant analyzes were also conducted with

high and medium UAI as the group membership

variable (1, 0).

The results only partially supported H1 (see Table 1),

which held that the high UAI group would search more

in non-marketer-dominated sources than in marketer-

dominated mass media sources. While, as expected,

the high UAI group (Japanese) searched more

often among the channel members of travel agents

F 31:06; po0:001; the medium UAI group

(Germans) searched significantly more often by personal

advice from friends and relatives F 36:71; po0:001;

published travel guides F 4:71; po0:03: Differences

in the use of published tour operators was not

statistically significant. In addition, while as expected,

the high UAI group searched less among all categoriesof marketer-dominated mass media, only TV/radio

advertising F 11:24; po0:001 and state/city travel

offices F 608:58; po0:001 categories were searched

significantly less.

Proposition 1, which predicted longer trip planning

lead times for the high UAI group, was not supported

(see Table 2). ANOVA results showed that trip planning

activity was much more intense among the medium UAI

group members, who decided an average of 65 more

days in advance to take the trip t 11:96;po0:001

and made their airline reservations an average of 54.8

days farther in advance t 234:06; po0:001 than the

high UAI group.

Table 1

Type of external search: discriminant analysis results

Trip planning information sources Group

Medium High F po

UAI (%) UAI (%)

Non-marketer dominated

Personal

Advice from friends

and relatives 32.2 17.8 36.71 0.001

Neutral

Travel guides 19.7 17.5 4.71 0.03

Channel Members

Travel agency 51.3 60.8 31.06 0.001

Tour operator 18.5 26.6 2.60 n.s.

Marketer-dominated mass media

Newspapers/magazine ads 9.9 9.2 1.85 n.s.

TV/radio ads 4.8 1.1 11.24 0.001

PC/electronic database (Web) 3.9 2.0 2.14 n.s.

Government tourist office 0.6 0.4 1.16 n.s.

State/city travel office 29.3 1.0 608.58 0.001

Table 2

Trip planning: ANOVA results

Trip planning Group

Medium High t po

UAI UAI

Days before departure the

decision was made to take trip 131.2 66.2 11.96 0.001

Days before departure the

airline reservation was made 89.8 34.9 15.29 0.001



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Proposition 2, which suggested that the high UAI

group would avoid the risk of traveling alone, was

supported by the data (see Table 3). The medium UAI

group traveled alone F 25:49;po0:001 more often

than the high UAI group, which traveled more with

a spouse F 8:05;po0:005; business associates

F 24:42;po0:001; friends F 9:03;po0:003;

and/or a group F 8:56;po0:004: Moreover,

ANOVA results revealed the average number of adults

on high UAI groups trips was significantly higher

t 7:5;po0:001 than for the medium UAI group. The

difference in the number of children, however, was not

significant.Proposition 3, which indicated that risk-avoiding

travel behavior would include more prepackaged

components and tours involving shorter trip duration

and fewer destinations visited, was also supported,

as shown in Table 4. The high UAI group pur-

chased prepacked tours significantly more often

F 17:48;po0:001 than the medium UAI group.

In addition, the prepackaged tours they purchased

included risk-reducing items such as tour escorts

F 13:30;po0:001; guided tours F 7:96;

po0:005; and lodging F 11:21;po0:001 signifi-

cantly more often than the high UAI group. In

addition, the average number of nights in the US

t 12:8;po0:001 and destinations visited t 19:6;

po0:001 were both only about a third as many for the

high UAI group as for the medium UAI group.

In addition, results of the canonical discriminate

function, shown in Table 5, reveals the discriminant

functions were statistically significant for all constructs,

both individually and combined, as measured by the chi-

square statistic. With an eigenvalue of 0.87 and a

canonical correlation value of 0.68, all the factors

accounted for a significant amount of the variance.

The Wilks lambda value of 0.53 indicated that both

groups were significantly different from one another in

regards to the dependent variables. Individual discrimi-

nate functions for each factor groupings provided

additional insights as to the relative importance of

national culture on tourist behavior. Table 5 reveals the

discriminant functions were statistically significant for

all four factors. The trip characteristics variables

produced the most robust statistics with a Canonical

correlation value of 0.61 chi-square 484:2;po0:001

followed by trip planning variables (canonical

R 0:47; chi-square 200:1;po0:001) and external

search variables (canonical R 0:46; chi-square

254:5;po0:001).

The final aspect of the data analysis was testing each

discriminate functions ability to correctly classify

respondents into the appropriate group (see Table 6).

The classification accuracy of the overall model achieved

84.7%, where 75.6% of the medium uncertainty

avoidance group and 90.4% of the high uncertainty

avoidance group could be correctly classified (see

Table 6). The overall classification accuracy of the

Table 3

Travel party characteristics

Travel party characteristics Group

Medium High F po

UAI UAI

Discriminant analysis results

Traveling

Alone 14.3% 5.1% 25.49 0.000

With spouse 60.0% 45.1% 8.05 0.005

With family 26.9% 29.8% 1.57 n.s.

With business associate 0.3% 12.9% 24.42 0.001

With friends 10.7% 15.7% 9.03 0.003

With group 5.1% 15.4% 8.56 0.004

t

ANOVA results

Number of adults on trip 2.91 7.85 7.56 0.001

Number of children on trip 0.24 0.20 1.11 n.s.

Table 4

Trip characteristics

Trip characteristics Group

Medium High F po

UAI UAI

Discriminant analysis results

Was trip prepackaged? (% yes) 39.4% 56.2% 17.48 0.001

Items included:

Airfare 35.2% 49.4% 11.56 0.001

Rental Car 14.3% 1.4% 25.24 0.001

Tour escort 14.6% 24.9% 13.30 0.001

Cruise 1.2% 7.5% 8.50 0.004

Guided tours 9.9% 24.3% 7.96 0.005

Lodging 31.9% 50.6% 11.21 0.001

t

ANOVA results

Number of nights in US 14.44 5.09 12.86 0.001

Total number of US

destinations visited 3.54 1.58 1 9.69 0.001

Table 5

Summary of canonical discriminant analyzes: External search, trip

planning, travel party and trip characteristics by UAI groups

Factor Eigen

value

Canonical Wilks Chi-square po

R lambda

External search 0.28 0.46 0.78 254.5 0.001

Trip planning 0.29 0.47 0.77 200.1 0.001

Travel party

characteristics

0.08 0.27 0.92 68.5 0.001

Trip characteristics 0.60 0.61 0.62 484.2 0.001

All factors 0.87 0.68 0.53 474.7 0.001



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component-dependent variables was 76.7% for external

search, 75.0% for trip planning, 63.6% for travel party

characteristics, and 83.8% for trip characteristics.

5. Analysis and discussion

5.1. External search

The results showed, consistent with expectations, that

consumers with a higher risk tolerance seek information

from marketer-dominated mass media sources than

those with a lower risk profile, but only significantly in

the case of TV and radio advertising and state/city travel

offices. Also consistent with expectations, medium UAI

consumers from Japan sought information from channel

members, such as travel agencies more than the high

UAI group of Germans, indicative of a risk avoiding

strategy. However, contrary to expectations, risk toler-ant cultures seek information from personal sources

more than those who are risk averse. Both of these

findings could have been caused, however, by artifacts

of the travel information systems in these countries.

Most Japanese tend to consult the huge Japan Travel

Bureau (JTB) travel agency, which strategy in fact

figured prominently in the results. Such would be

consistent with the Japanese tendency for rational

(as opposed to emotional) and cognitive-based searching

(McDonald, 1995). It is also consistent with the notion

that Japanese tend to leave travel arrangements to

professionals rather than to themselves or inexperienced

personal information source. In addition, the Japanese

may not consult personal sources because of the

responsibility for a good trip it places on the advice-

giver in a society where protecting face and allowing

others to do so is important.

5.2. Trip planning

The influence of culture was further illuminated in the

way the respondents planned their trips. Significantly,

more of the risk-avoidant Japanese respondents pur-

chased some form of a travel package prior to their trip,

and more than half of them had the big-ticket items of

lodging and airfare in the package. Also, the risk-averse

group tended to prepackage more of the risk reducing

elements of the trip, such as lodging and a guided tour

or tour escort, preferring to leave less of their actual

experience at the destination to chance. On the other

hand, the more risk-accepting Germans included rentalcars (a high-risk item because of the possibility of

getting lost, accidents, etc.) more than any other item in

the packages they did buy.

However, Japanese tourists to the US did not decide

to take the trip sooner nor did they plan further ahead

by making an airline reservation sooner than the

Germans. Planning horizons were significantly shorter

for the Japanese group, which may be caused by a

Japanese tendency to rely on travel agents and tour

operators who, by profession, lessen risk for their

clients. Such an assertion supports the finding associated

with H1 regarding whom the Japanese use as an

information source: travel channel members. In fact,

the average number of days before the Japanese decide

to travel was about half that of the Germans (about 66

vs. 131 days). The same was true for airline reservations

(about 35 vs. 89 days). This is contrary to what we might

expect, i.e., risk-reducers would tend to spend more time

in planning their trips in order to lessen the uncertainties

of traveling to a new destination. However, risk avoiders

may also have a harder time making a decision and take

longer because of their search process. It may take more

days before they become comfortable enough with the

arrangements to make the decision to go and actually

buy the airplane ticket. Another explanation may bethat those who have higher tolerance for risk and who

tend to favor free and independent forms of travel may

find enjoyable the trip planning process and willingly

spend more time in trip planning.

5.3. Travel party characteristics

As predicted, respondents in the high UAI group

reported traveling alone significantly less often than

respondents in the medium UAI group. This would be

consistent with safety-in-numbers, risk-avoidant be-

havior, not wanting to endanger ones health or life in

the stereotypically dangerous New York or Los Angeles,

for example. Moreover, respondents in the high UAI

group were 25 times more likely to be traveling with

business associates and twice as likely to be traveling

with friends and organized groups. Also, as expected,

respondents from the high-risk aversion group on

average traveled in groups more than twice the size of

those from medium-risk adverse group, at 7.85 adults

and 2.91 adults, respectfully. Japanese, famous for their

group mentality, probably think that there is less chance

of being disappointed the more people have signed up

the adventure. Both groups reported few children in

Table 6

Classification results: Percentages of respondents that could be

correctly classified into national cultural groups

Group

High Medium Overall (%)

UAI (%) UAI (%)

External search 94.5 38.5 76.7

Trip planning 89.3 51.9 75.0

Travel party characteristics 60.1 66.2 64.9

Trip characteristics 91.3 68.2 83.8

All factors 90.4 75.6 84.7



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their travel parties, less than an average of one child per

group. Since the sample was delimited to primarily first

time visitors to the US (i.e., no previous visit in past 5

years), traveling with children was probably deemed too

risky for both groups. While it was possible to answer

both spouse and group on the survey, it is also

interesting to note that Japanese traveled with theirspouses significantly less often than did the Germans.

5.4. Trip characteristics

Finally, significant differences between groups were

also revealed in terms of length of stay and the number

of destinations visited. As predicted, respondents from

Germany stayed on average three times as long and

visited two times more destinations than their counter-

parts in Japan. The average stay of the overseas visitor

to the US is 13 nights, compared with about 14 for the

German group and only 5 for the Japanese. This travel

purchase pattern is consistent with the high UAI

Japanese culture that seeks to minimize the risk of

something going wrong or not enjoying the trip as much

as would be expected. Distance and time considerations

would not appear to be confounding factors, since the

time and expense to actually get to the US destination

does not apparently need to be amortized over more

days for the Japanese in comparison to Germans, in a

mental accounting sense.

6. Implications and conclusions

For academics, the study makes two contributions.

First, it may guide the research agenda for an additional

avenue in information search behavior, as well as usage

situations. Second, it adds to a growing body of

literature on the effect of national culture on a variety

of marketing phenomena in a variety of contexts. The

service nature of the studys context, for example, adds

to our knowledge about the marketing of services. The

further testing of the hypothesis and propositions herein

could yield valuable insights into how cross-cultural

marketing phenomena operate.

6.1. Limitations and future research

Due to the highly delimited nature of the sample, the

results should not be construed to be representative of

all tourists from Japan and Germany, let alone all those

who visit the US. Further research is needed involving

other sample frames as well as other matched sample

characteristics in an effort to validate this studys

findings as to the influence of national culture on

consumer decision making. In addition, future studies

might include a wider variety of countries spanning

from high to low along the UAI index as well as examine

more characteristics of travel behavior. In addition, the

Hofstede dimensions of culture, 20 years old, are limited

to their theoretical applicability, since they were designed

to measure work-related values. An attempt to replicate

the Hofstede index numbers in future samples would be

worthwhile. Hofstede has published an updated version

of his instrument called the VSM 94, which might servethis purpose. Others of his five dimensions, such as

individualism, might also be explored in relation to

travel behavior. In addition, future data collection

efforts might be improved by including some qualitative

measures of risk avoidance or other cultural phenomena

in open-ended written survey questions or through in-

depth interviews with select subjects.

6.2. For practitioners

An issue that global marketing managers constantly

face is that of standardization vs. adaptation. They must

decide whether to trade the cost savings, content

control, and uniform brand image of the former (Levitt,

1983) for the benefit of successfully tapping local tastes

and preferences of the latter (Douglas & Wind, 1987).

The dilemma extends to the question of whether it is

appropriate/advisable to standardize the tourist product

and marketing campaign for all international potential

visitors to the US, or to tailor promotion for each

individual market (You et al., 2000).

This study provides tourism marketers some evidence

needed in making that tough call in appealing to

consumers in three of the largest foreign travel markets.

Regarding where marketers might best spend resourcesto communicate with potential customers, those in

Germany seem to respond best to city or state

destination marketing promotion, whereas Japanese

consumers prefer talking with travel agents. Interest-

ingly, these sources of information, along with personal

word-of-mouth, are more important as information

sources than marketer-dominated sources of mass media

advertising, contrary to what conventional wisdom

might hold. Also surprising is the fact that highly risk-

avoidant Japanese do not plan their trips and make

decisions farther in advance than do the Germans. They

may be waiting for more or better information with

which to make a decision, something marketers might

keep in mind when designing the marketing mix for

these countries, or for countries of similar culture. Also,

a group-oriented message and product certainly appeals

more to the Japanese than to Germans. Since nights

stayed obviously generates more revenue for host

destinations, the stay longer to enjoy more sights

message seems better suited for medium uncertainty

avoidance cultures. However, risk-averse cultures like

Japan may present more of an opportunity for increasing

length of stay, since they typically stay only 5 nights and

visit less than 2 places in the US per trip.



11/12

In a wider sense, the study illuminates some of the

differences in external information search among the

nationalities of consumers of some of the worlds major

consumer markets. Cultural influences also play a role in

how consumers go about making and implementing a

decision after the information has been gathered. The

study has also challenged some cultural stereotypes andthe common wisdom about where consumers search for

their information, particularly in an international

context. When planning how to communicate with

consumers outside the US, American marketers would

do well to consider the ramifications of these processes

in an ever-increasingly global marketplace.

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