The Couple Life Cycle

Abstract

Abstract Examination of the application of the family life cycle concept in the hospitality and tourism field revealed that hospitality and tourism researchers only included married couples in their utilized/proposed Family Life Cycle models. In this study, a Couple Life Cycle (CLC) model is proposed. The proposed couple life cycle model only includes couples who are married, remarried or cohabiting. The proposed CLC model was tested on three pre-vacation decisions: information search, final decision and trip planning by utilizing a correspondence analysis. The results of the correspondence analysis revealed that couple decision making has four dimensions. These dimensions are: male partner dominated decisions, female partner dominated decisions, joint decisions and autonomous decisions.