An empirical examination of tourists’ decision-making-based regret

Much has been made concerning the role of positive emotions in tourism. The contribution of the present study, in contrast, is to provide a deeper understanding of a powerful negative emotion; namely, regret in tourists’ decision-making. This study centers on data derived from 49 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with experienced tourists and travelers, who had experienced feelings of regret that went beyond simple dissatisfaction’ regarding some aspect of their recent travel, or tourist experiences. Our primary contribution is to advance a typology of tourists’ decision-making-based regret, that distinguishes this emotion from similar concepts such as dissatisfaction or disappointment (capturing four factors based on retrospective regret [backward looking] vs. anticipated regret [forward looking], and causal regret [faulty decision-making] vs. outcome-based regret [comparative decision-making]). Our study points to the importance of understanding post-purchase regret in order to help tourists make better consumption decisions and tourism providers to create improved tourist experiences.