Navigating uncertainty: How international travelers evaluate information credibility in crisis-affected destinations

Abstract

International travelers often encounter conflicting information when visiting crisis-affected destinations, yet how they assess credibility remains underexplored. This study examines how international tourists evaluate information credibility and how this shapes trust and travel behaviors. Through Constructivist Grounded Theory, we analyzed interviews with 20 tourists in Nepal. Unlike universal cognitive models, credibility evaluation proved context-dependent, influenced by prior experience, access to digital ecosystems, and travel purpose. Four evaluation modes emerged: Effortful Verification, Cue-Based Trust, Experience-Based Confidence, and Commitment-Driven Evaluation. Importantly, relational capital and embodied safety perceptions impacted behaviors, challenging linear trust models. Theoretically, this contextualizes and refines the Heuristic–Systematic Model within tourism crisis theory by framing credibility evaluation as a fluid, context-dependent practice rather than a fixed cognitive binary, and introduces relational epistemology and embodied safety as mechanisms shaping trust in crisis-affected destinations. Practically, it suggests destination marketers tailor communication strategies to different evaluation modes and empower local intermediaries. This research highlights the importance of building trust resilience over simply correcting misinformation, proposing an emergent conceptual framework for managing credibility in volatile tourism settings.