Resumen de Mastering Unobserved Heterogeneity in Tourist Behavior Research
According to what the philosophy of science considers to be a scientifically relevant undertaking, tourist behavior research should be based on explicit hypotheses or—even better—on a system ofpinterconnected relationships (a “model"). The models are subject to empirical testing to assess theirpexplanatory and predictive capabilities. As in any other subfield of behavioral science, a sample ofptourists used for model testing is often heterogeneous in terms of variable values and associationpbetween variables. Therefore, the results gained for bivariate or multivariate relations may be artifactspdue to spurious correlations. Heterogeneity is found to appear on different levels of tourist behaviorpmodel building. It is easier to control if there are explicit assumptions about moderator variables.Examples are discussed to portray these cases.
Note: Selected issues of a paper presented at the Second Symposium on the Consumer Psychology of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, Vienna, July 2000.
