Training exercise in interpreting causal maps in tourism research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how to go about interpreting causal maps and provides an introduction to the literature of causal mapping. Design/methodology/approach – The paper includes two international causal maps showing the favorable antecedent conditions of Germans towards visiting Britain and the negative antecedent conditions of Brits towards visiting Germany. The paper provides training exercise questions with a solution in interpreting causal maps. Findings – The training helps make implicit, automatic, thinking explicit and provides clues for the marketing strategist of actions necessary to changing long‐term negative implicit associations that potential visitors retrieve regarding tourism destinations. Research limitations/implications – This report does not include the results of applying the exercise in executive training programs. Does completing the exercise help improve decision making? Practical implications – Executives need to experience specific training exercises to improve decision‐making skills. Obvious solutions usually only become so only following experiencing the process of making decisions; such training exercises as the one this paper presents builds on this premise. Originality/value – This paper breaks new ground in participative learning by executives to improve their skills by solving real‐life tourism marketing problems.