Autor/a

DAVID BOTO GARCÍA (University of Oviedo)

Coautor/es

José Baños Pino (Universidad de Oviedo)

ANTONIO ÁLVAREZ (University of Oviedo)

This paper analyses tourists’ domestic destination choice focusing on the effects of distance to origin and the difference in temperatures and prices between the tourist’s place of residence and the destination. Our main objective is to study whether tourists look for a differential in temperature in comparison to their region of origin when travelling. In addition, the prices of each possible destination within the country can be compared with the ones at the origin. Moreover, we also take into accunt some pull factors such as the total number of coastline kilometers and the total number of tourism spots, as well as relevant sociodemographic characteristics. Another issue of concern is how differences in temperatures interact with the main purpose of the trip. To this end, we employ monthly data from the Residents Tourism Survey (RESITUR) for the period February 2015-September 2017, which gathers microdata about Spanish residents that have travelled within the country the previous month. We estimate a Generalized Multinomial Logit (GMNL) that takes into account both taste and scale heterogeneity. This model does not only consider random parameters in some key explanatory variables but it also controls for the differences in magnitude between the deterministic and the random components of the utility across the sample.  Our preeliminary results indicate that domestic tourists in Spain exhibit a clear preference for the Canary Islands, that the number of tourism spots is positively associated with the probability of a destination being chosen and that the Mediterranean coast and the North-West are the preferred areas to visit in the summer. Both distance and the Price differential between destination and origin negatively affect the choice of a destination. As for the difference in average temperatures, domestic tourists seem to prefer to travel to regions with a similar climate to the one of their place of origin. Additionally, high income people tend to travel to the Canary Islands whereas citizens prefer the Central area of Spain.

Palabras clave: domestic tourism, climate, destination choice, GMNL, taste heterogeneity