How Safety Risk Information and Alternative Forms of Presenting It Affect Traveler Decision Rules in International Flight Choice

Abstract

This article develops a “latent elimination” choice model to examine how travelers respond to different levels of safety risk in making decisions about flight choices. We find a pattern of eliminatory and compensatory decision-mix where travelers have varying thresholds of risk acceptance. Below this threshold the options are eliminated, whereas above the threshold the safety attribute can be traded off with other flight attributes. The “safe” versus “unsafe” dichotomy in risk perception is thus a special case where a traveler’s threshold is especially high. Based on a sample of 509 Australians, our stated choice experiment utilized six alternative forms of safety information presentation, and found that they influenced the decision rules adopted by tourists and their willingness to pay. The latent elimination choice model can be used for retrieving elimination behavior in an information-rich online decision context that characterizes many tourism choices, including for understanding how travelers respond to destination safety risk information.