Boundaries of Visitors’ Willingness to Disclose Personal Information to Tourism Destinations

Abstract

With the rising demand for personal information, touristic websites and service providers collect and increasingly depend on the willingness of tourists’ private data disclosure. While legislation slowly provides directions for data collection practices, tourists remain wary on which and how much data they should or have to provide to organize their visit in a tourism destination. Our qualitative study explores this domain holistically and lays out four boundary evaluations: blurred, but clear view, positive incentives, subjective well-being, and restraining factors on how tourists evaluate their willingness to disclose personal information to a destination. By drawing upon and substantiating theory of information privacy behavior, we contribute to the field of personal information sharing in the tourism domain by expanding and coloring the complexities of tourists’ expectations, intentions, and boundaries.