Enhancing tourist safety in digital companion selection: the role of analytic screening procedures and decision-making styles in Travel Dazi platforms

Digital platforms for travel companion matching (“Travel Dazi”) introduce significant safety risks when tourists rely on heuristic, impression-based judgments. This experimental study (N = 126) investigates how the type of online screening procedure – heuristic versus analytic – affects tourists’ evaluation accuracy when selecting stranger companions. Drawing on dual-process theory and interactionist perspectives, we test a moderated mediation model in which memory retention mediates the procedure–accuracy relationship, and rational-experiential decision-making style (operationalized via the MBTI Sensing/Intuiting dimension as a proxy) serves as a moderator. Results show that analytic screening procedures significantly improve evaluation accuracy by enhancing memory retention. This effect is stronger for tourists with a higher rational decision-making style. These findings extend dual-process theory to high-uncertainty tourism contexts and have practical implications for platform design, including the introduction of structured “analytic mode” features for high-risk itineraries.