An investigation of independent travelers’ trust in travel-related online content during pre-trip decision making

This research aims to investigate the trust of independent travelers to online content during the pre-trip decision making. The statistical population was travelers who had a completely independent trip with personal planning during the past year. Adopting snowball sampling, an online questionnaire was designed and the link was published through social networks. Findings indicated that men are more likely to make pre-trip decisions based on User-generated Content compared to women and this decision is mainly based on other travelers' comments and their opinions regarding their previous experiences. The results also show that the more people use social networks in their daily lives, the more they tend to trust other users' experience in making the pre-trip decision and plan their trip accordingly.