Understanding Word-of-Mouth Dyad of Travel Risks: via Fuzzy Linguistic Preference Relations

• Main Authors: Fangyi Liu, 劉芳怡
• Other Authors: Tom M. Y. Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40993160085429769375

博士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 企業管理系 === 100 === Travel products involve a high level of risk. The perception of travel risk is often vague and the evaluation process for making travel product purchase decisions is also vague and extremely complex. Searching by word of mouth or reputation has become a necessity when purchasing travel products; however, the heterogeneity of consumers results in differed risk preferences between the word-of-mouth (WOM) receivers and senders. Considering different outcomes or reactions of WOM dyad is important. This study explores the WOM dyad of travel risk by reviewing existing literature and performing expert interviews to establish a suitable criteria and sub-criteria framework for evaluating the WOM dyad of travel risk. This can be used to improve the calculation design for a fuzzy linguistic preference relation method to address the low efficiency problem that occurs during traditional fuzzy multi-criteria decision making. Additionally, this can also be used to evaluate the travel risk WOM receivers consider to be the most important and the various travel risk preferences WOM senders are most likely to spread. This study chose the 2011 Penghu Fireworks Festival group package travel product as the empirical subject. Regarding the WOM receiver, financial risks and functional risks are considered the most important, whereas social risks are considered the least important. Nevertheless, regarding the WOM sender, psychological risk is the aspect most likely to be spread through word of mouth, followed by social and functional risks. The least likely risk to be disseminated was facilitating risk. Finally, this study constructed a matrix to analyze WOM dyad of travel risks. This matrix categorizes the efficiency of word of mouth into four categories: high WOM effect (financial function perception), moderate WOM effect (social psychology perception), the mid to low WOM effect (facilitating perception), and low WOM effect (physical perception). Furthermore, the results of this study can provide related word-of-mouth marketing strategies to businesses and the government.