The Value of Travel Distance in Tourism travelling by Air

Abstract

Tourists travelling by airplane contribute significantly to the CO2 emissions. The number of flights covering longer distances is rising and, consequently, implies more energy consumption. This leads to a greater environmental impact compared to flights covering shorter distances. Although people are expected to continue travelling, adjusting the holiday destinations and modes of transport can effectively reduce the environmental footprint of tourism, all while maintaining pleasurable travel experiences. To minimize CO2 emissions by adjusting holiday destinations, destinations closer to home should be chosen. A trade-off seems to appear when selecting a holiday destination, involving a balance between the attractiveness of a specific destination and the different travel-related considerations. More attractive destinations can be reached with increasing distances, yet this also increases travel time and cost which are both preferred to be minimized. So far, research into the value of distance in this trade-off in the context of holiday destination choices is found to be limited. Therefore, this research studies how people value distance, controlling for travel time and travel cost, when choosing the destination for their holiday to gain a more comprehensive understanding of tourism travel behaviour. Since long-distance flights have larger CO2 emissions compared to flying over shorter distances, this study compares distances for holiday destinations that require long-distance flights with flights covering shorter distances. Additionally, these results can lead to interesting insights for policymakers. The main research question examined in this study is:
‘What is the value of physical distance for Dutch tourists in the choice of their summer holiday destination?’

For this study, a stated preference survey was created to collect data for addressing the research question, resulting in a sample of 254 Dutch tourists. To understand if distance holds intrinsic value, once controlling for travel time and for travel cost, and to investigate if the value of distance would change when travel time and cost are considered, two versions of a stated choice experiment are included in the survey. The respondents are randomly assigned to one of the choice experiments, resulting in half of the respondents completing one version while the other half completing the other.

Since people prefer different types of holidays, including all attractiveness attributes in choice sets may lead to many immediate ’no-go’ options. Therefore, the survey started with an additional experiment for all respondents. In this experiment, the respondents rated the attractiveness of different holiday destinations on a 10-point rating scale. A regression model was estimated based on the observed ratings. This gives an indication of the attractiveness of holiday destinations.

To investigate the intrinsic value of distance and if the value of distance changes considering travel time and cost, the results of the two versions of the choice experiments are estimated with a Multinomial Logit model. When comparing the results of both versions it was found that in version Choice experiment presenting all attributes a very small positive value exists, so small that it can be negligible. This suggests that once controlling for travel time and costs, there is no intrinsic value in distance. This was unexpected as it was expected that further distances would have a positive influence on the utility...