Studies of tourist decision-making seldom address ontological orien- tation. However, that does not render ontological issues irrelevant. In particular, an awareness of broad ontological categories is important in order to compare and contrast approaches to tourists’ decision-making. Most researchers acknowledge that decision-making is a process, but a process can be understood in at least two ways. First, it can be viewed through a ‘realism’ ontology of real objects, entities or ‘things’ interacting in a reasonably orderly, if usually complicated, manner. Second, the decision-making process can be understood as itself being fundamentally what is real, perhaps in turn giving rise to the kinds of objects, entities or ‘things’ that might emerge or be social constructed by a researcher.