An investigation into the effects of risk and uncertainty on consumers' decision-making processes: a cross-national study

[Truncated abstract] Global tourism accounted for US$623 billion in 2004, representing 6% of the world's exports of goods and services (World Tourism Organisation, 2005). In the last decade, natural and man-made disasters have adversely affected the tourism industry. Consequently, the risk and uncertainty associated with travel have increased, potentially impacting on tourists' behaviour. However, while travel motivators have received a great deal of research attention, travel constraints have not been examined to the same degree. The present study explores risk and uncertainty and their roles in people's decisionmaking processes in a tourism context. In doing so, attempts were made to clarify the distinction between the risk and uncertainty constructs, which in prior research often have been used interchangeably, leading to some confusion about their roles. The distinction between the perceptual and attitudinal constructs also was clarified, as prior research into their differential impacts has been limited. To achieve these objectives, data were collected from online research panel members in Australia, the United States (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), New Zealand, South Korea, China and Japan, as part of a larger tourism study. While the majority of the country samples were drawn from the general population, the Japan sample constituted an international "travellers", as such a sample was required for the larger tourism study. The present study developed parsimonious scales that assessed people's generalised attitudes towards risk avoidance (RA) and uncertainty avoidance (UA) in cross-national contexts. ... Similarly, attitude towards travel to Australia mediated the influence of situation-specific PU on intention to travel to Australia in the New Zealand, South Korea and China samples, but not in the USA, the UK or Japan samples. Finally, the situation-specific PR and PU constructs were integrated within Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) model in a limited set of country samples (South Korea, China and Japan). The results reinforced earlier findings that situationspecific PR and PU directly influenced attitude towards travel to Australia, but only indirectly influenced intention to travel to Australia in most country samples. The developed model should enable researchers to explore the different impacts risk and uncertainty have on various stages of the decision-making process. Such impacts could be examined in various buying situations across national cultures and at an individual level within those cultures. The model also has implications for practitioners. Tourism companies looking to develop long-term relationships with their customers will be able to identify risk (uncertainty) avoiding and risk (uncertainty) seeking customers and customise strategies that appeal to such segments, thereby potentially increasing satisfaction and the positive word of mouth that is so crucial to most tourism operations. Finally, for global companies, a better understanding of cross-national differences in decision-making can help to increase the effectiveness of their international marketing strategies.