When planning their trips, tourists increasingly navigate a diverse information environment that combines digital platforms, traditional media, institutional sources, and interpersonal recommendations, making both source use and trust important dimensions of the decision-making process. This study examines patterns of trust in and use of travel information sources among residents of Croatia and explores their associations with selected sociodemographic characteristics. A computer-assisted telephone survey was conducted among 601 adult residents of Croatia in January 2025. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and Pearson’s chi-square tests and factor analysis. Recommendations from family and friends emerged as both the most trusted and the most frequently used source of travel information. Websites of tourism companies and destinations, along with online platforms, also received relatively high trust ratings, whereas social media and news portals were trusted least. Information-source use varied significantly across age groups, particularly for digital channels, while education showed more selective associations. No statistically significant differences were found by sex. The findings point to distinct patterns of trust in and use of travel information sources, with implications for the design of tourism communication strategies across different sociodemographic groups.
In recent years, tourism and hospitality has been transformed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and increasingly accurate machine learning tools (Law et al [...]
The special issue of Tourism and Hospitality, entitled ‘Rethinking Destination Planning Through Sustainable Local Development’, focuses on tourist destinations at the heart of the study of tourism [...]
Boutique hotels often lack the brand recognition of established hotel chains, making it important to understand how distinctive social media content may shape consumers’ willingness to try unfamiliar properties. Drawing on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) framework, this study examines the proposed sequential relationship between perceived brand novelty, social media experience, pioneering feeling, and willingness to try a boutique hotel. Pioneering feeling is conceptualized as a situationally activated sense of discovering an offering ahead of others and is examined as an identity-related psychological response within the S–O–R framework. A scenario-based, cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted with 159 eligible participants aged 20–35 who used Instagram or TikTok for travel-related information. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling with bootstrapping. The results showed positive associations between perceived brand novelty and social media experience, social media experience and pioneering feeling, and pioneering feeling and willingness to try. The specific sequential indirect effect was also statistically significant, consistent with the proposed pathway through social media experience and pioneering feeling. These findings provide initial empirical support for pioneering feeling as a situational psychological state that helps explain how perceived novelty may be associated with willingness to try an unfamiliar boutique hotel. The study contributes to hospitality and tourism research by extending S–O–R applications beyond conventional cognitive and affective responses to incorporate a situationally activated identity-related response. For boutique hotels, the findings highlight the potential relevance of distinctive social media experiences in shaping perceptions of early discovery. Because the study uses a cross-sectional design, however, the observed associations should not be interpreted as evidence of temporal or causal mediation. Future research using longitudinal or experimental designs can further examine the proposed sequence.
Variable-centered tests of the constraint negotiation thesis show whether the effect of constraints varies with motivation, but not how many people remain motivated despite strong constraints. This study aimed to identify subgroups of Generation Z defined jointly by travel motivation and travel constraints and to compare them across countries. Latent profile analysis was applied to cross-sectional online survey data from Generation Z respondents in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore (n = 300 each). Because the motivation and constraint scales lacked scalar invariance, indicators were standardized within country and profiles compared in shape and composition; intention (partially scalar invariant) was compared in level. Aspiring-but-constrained profiles (above-average motivation and highest constraints within country) comprised 12% to 24% of each sample and ranked first or second on intention. In every country, a low-motivation profile had the lowest intention. Japanese respondents reported the lowest intention; the association between profiles and intention was not weaker in Japan, but the sample had fewer high-motivation, low-constraint respondents and a large flat majority with lower intention than comparable profiles elsewhere. The findings are consistent with a precondition of the negotiation thesis and distinguish targets for constraint reduction and demand creation.
