Alleviating Travelers’ Privacy Concern in Personalized Recommendations Through Perceived Information Autonomy: Strategies via Hedge Words and Communication Styles

Abstract

Personalized recommendations based on personal information enhance travelers’ experiences but raise privacy concerns. The inherent uncertainty in tourism, where travelers cannot fully visualize their destination choices and frequently alter their plans, leads to highly variable and complex travel decisions. This complexity poses a challenge for intelligent systems attempting to predict traveler preferences accurately. Previous research has seldom examined the role of uncertain expressions in predicting traveler preferences within personalized recommendation systems. Through a field study on Facebook and three experimental studies, we find that travelers exhibit fewer privacy concerns and more positive attitudes toward personalized advertising in the presence (vs. absence) of hedge words—a form of uncertain expression—in personalized recommendation labels. Meanwhile, this effect is mediated by travelers’ autonomy over their personal information and moderated by the communication styles used in recommendation labels. These findings contribute to the tourism literature on privacy concerns and personalized recommendations.