Tourist decision-making under adverse weather conditions: a synthesis and future agenda

Abstract

Empirical research contends that adverse weather conditions disrupts tourist decision-making processes. When weather deviates from expectations, tourists may experience distress and negative emotions, potentially influencing their decisions. While the impact of adverse weather on tourism is well-documented from a supply-side perspective, less attention has been paid to advancing the conceptual understanding of tourists’ decision-making to adverse weather. Consequently, this research conducts a three-stage systematic narrative review to critically examine tourist decision-making in response to adverse weather. Findings reveal that studies tend to focus on short-term emotional distress and immediate behavioural reactions. Long-term coping strategies, particularly psychological drivers and behavioural adaptations, are under-represented in current research. Additionally, misrepresented research often fails to apply an adequate range of constructs, such as self-regulatory orientation and heuristics and biases, to investigate tourist decision-making under adverse weather. This manuscript introduces a construct-to-phenomenon conceptualisation that links psychological constructs to the phenomenon of tourist decision-making to adverse weather. A future research agenda is visualised, which is explicitly designed to stimulate further constructive discourse and advance empirical investigations. Future research should develop, refine, and test theoretical frameworks, which conceptualise self-regulatory orientation and heuristics, and account for the biases in the key antecedents operationalised in research on tourist decision-making.