Title: Family members as an external source of travel information

Authors: Zahra Shekarchizade; Bahram Ranjbarian; Vahid Ghasemi

Addresses: Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, Shahid Ashrafi Esfahani University, Isfahan, Iran ' Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran ' Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract: The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of family structure, duration of family life and family members' acquaintance with travel destination on information search behaviour of heads of families to buy a package tour. A sample of 70 Isfahani heads of families who had bought an outbound package tour in January-September 2017 was selected. The results indicate that family structure and duration of family life have impacts on the perceived value of seeking information among family members. In families that have different value structures and in various stages of family life cycle, the perceived value of seeking information among family members is different; however, the perceived value was not significantly effective in the level of seeking information among family members. Indeed, family members' acquaintance with travel destination has a significant impact on the level of seeking information by using perceived value of seeking information among family members.

Keywords: family members; travel information; family structure; duration offamily life; familiarity; information search behaviour; perceived value; familial factors; external source; decision making.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIDS.2020.110448

International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, 2020 Vol.12 No.4, pp.390 - 407

Received: 17 Oct 2018
Accepted: 12 Mar 2019
Published online: 20 Oct 2020 *

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