Past International Travel Experience
Past international travel experience has also been found to affect tourists’ information search behaviors (Cahyanto and Pennington-Gray 2012; Kerstetter and Cho 2004; Schroeder 2012). The influence of past experience traveling to a desti- nation on tourists’ information search behaviors was sup- ported in the context of hurricane evacuations (Cahyanto and Pennington-Gray 2012). Tourists who have not previously visited a destination have been found to be less likely to turn to social media for hurricane evacuation information than tourists who have previously visited the destination (Cahyanto and Pennington-Gray 2012). The researchers suggested that tourists who had not been to the destination may be less familiar with the destination or have few ties (e.g., family and friends) and, thus, less likely to turn to social media (Cahyanto and Pennington-Gray 2012).