Understanding the Travel Decision-Making Behaviors of Ethnic Minority Tourists: The Moderating Role of Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

Grounded on the concept of ethnicity, this paper explores the travel consumption and decision-making behaviors of ethnic minority travelers through the lens of psychological empowerment. Employing a quantitative-dominant concurrent nested mixed-methods approach, 951 surveys (404 white and 547 ethnic minority participants), 6 focus groups, and 10 semi-structured interviews (with ethnic minority travelers) were conducted in the UK. The findings reveal the existence of prejudices and discrimination experienced by ethnic minorities during international and domestic travel, with ethnicity being a key factor. The paper identifies the need to adopt a multi-level empowerment approach, where psychological empowerment is found to be key to understanding how negative experiences and perceived risks are accepted, feared, and/or transformed into sources of interactional and intrapersonal empowerment. This has significant positive impacts on international and domestic travel intentions of ethnic minorities. The theoretical, methodological, and management implications of the study are discussed.