From the 'ideal' to the real destination: tourists' location choice for holiday experience: 57th Conference of the Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST)

This paper proposes a new perspective on a tourist’s choice behaviour in the case of city destinations, gives an example for its empirical application and discusses its implications for a destination’s productivity. The theoretical considerations are based on the Lancasterian model of characteristics (Lancaster, 1966). We assume that tourists travel to a city destination with a specific motivation (for example cul-ture, shopping) and, arrived at destination, allocate time and money on goods and services to produce the expected holiday experience. In contrast with similar litera-ture, we do not assume, however, that the consumption technology is fixed for any given destination (what we call ideal destination), an assumption that seems too ab-stract to reflect the multioptionality character of modern (city) tourism. Different tourists segments have different travel motivations and look for diverse holiday ex-periences, even when travelling to the same destination. Cities, in particular, by of-fering a miscellany of services and attractions, can satisfy many demand segments at a time. But the possibilities of spending a day with a specific motivation is not in-finite, as it depends on the quantity and quality of attractions and services a city destination offers, on the one hand, and – neglecting money budget – on the neces-sary time to visit attractions/facilities on the other. We therefore assume that the production technology is fixed for a certain segment choosing a specific option. This more realistic approach allows, on the one hand, to propose a simple indicator of urban location’s attractiveness in terms of options offered, and on the other hand prepares a discussion of a city’s productivity in tourism that considers options and capacity.