Modelling a decision maker's preferences with different assumptions about the preference structure: Theory development and initial applications for tourism and hospitality management

Understanding customers' preferences and preference structure is an important aspect of managing service applications. This paper develops a heuristic approach that includes a new preference elicitation procedure and two different value function models. The elicitation procedure makes no assumptions about the form of the preference structure of the decision maker (DM), is easy to understand, and does not take much time to complete. Then, two different models based on different assumptions about the DM's preference structure are developed to fit the elicitation procedure data. The Linear-Fractional Model assumes perfect substitution (linear indifference curves where the slopes can vary) and the Decision Utility Model assumes perfect complements (right-angled indifference curves). The paper develops the methods using an example of a park management problem. The models are tested in an exploratory experiment that demonstrates how to use the methods and techniques in a multi-criteria decision problem.