Grand Models

Insights into understanding consumer behavior, which are inherently very complex, date back to ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Aristo, and so on, but it is seen that it has been tried to be explained with models, starting with Adam Smith (1759). These behaviors were first explained in the form of rationality and then as limited rationality. Later, with the development of sociology and psychology, these behaviors were explained using the so-called “grand models” after the 1950s, by adding many variables that express the individual’s economic and social environment and emotional state. A large number of authors in tourism literature state that the models developed for the consumption of tangible products are also widely used in the analysis of the behavior of tourist consumers. The tourist consumer uses these models in the appropriate decision-making stage by eliminating the intensive information he/she collects in the first purchases for the destination and in the cases of reducing risks in general. It is understood that a tourist applies them less intensively in repeated visits too. The fact that touristic purchases have high-risk product features—for example, the tourism event consists of personal experience, it is a high-cost and rarely purchased experience, and it is an abstract service—creates a co-creative purchasing feature for the consumer. It is understood that, thanks to technological advancements and applications such as artificial intelligence, tourist consumers are evolving in a fast, instant, unique, and co-creative way to obtain the information they need about the tourism product.