GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Soo Hyun Jun (TRSM graduate student) won Best Presentation at the 4th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium at the Travel and Tourism Research Association Canada.

The award was for a presentation entitled Impact of Message Character and Message Framing on Attitude: The Moderating Role of Involvement.

The presentation looked at how individuals analyze information and make choices when deciding to travel. It used a hypothetical example of an individual making plans for a vacation in Italy, looking at how that individual might make decisions from information such as online hotel reviews.

The study indentified aspects of message character --  the kind of content a message has -- that have an impact on travelers; for example, whether information appealed to a person’s sense of enjoyment, or whether it appealed to more practical considerations, such as price.

The study found that the potential travelers’ degree of involvement in the decision-making process had a moderating effect on travel plans. An individual with high involvement, meaning one about to make a decision, was more affected by practical considerations such as price and negative reviews of travel destinations. An individual with low involvement tended to pay more attention to images of enjoyment associated with information and positive hotel reviews.

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