Attribute framing effects on the timing of booking intentions

Abstract

Based on experimental evidence, this paper intended to shed some light on whether the negative and positive framing (wording) manipulation of a tourism offer affects the  travellers’ judgment of the decisions involved in booking a holiday element(i.e., mountains tour) with regard to timing (well before the trip, at the last minute). We employ Levin et al’s attribute framing paradigm to manipulate a key attribute of a holiday offer (good/bad weather conditions on the day of a mountains tour), and ask consumers to evaluate the offer and make a mountains tour reservation decision. As hypothesized, positive presentation of the attribute information elicited more responses in favour of early booking and negative presentation of the same attribute elicited fewer responses in favour of early booking; and therefore this could form a useful basis for marketing communication strategies related to the timing and presentation of booking information to the advantage of the tourism industry.

Key words: Prospect theory, attribute framing, weather conditions, experiment, timing of booking intentions