chapter 4 analysing the demand for tourist travel 1
TRANSCRIPT
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Chapter 4
Analysing the Demand for Tourist Travel
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Contents and Chapter outline
• Introduction• The international demand for tourist travel -
understanding why people travel• Tourist travel motivators • Classifying tourists• Motivation, tourist transport research and
psychological issues• Tourist transport research and psychological issues• Data sources on international tourist travel• Aviation, Rail, Bus / Coach and Cruise statistics• Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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Introduction
• Leisure travel has become a key feature of the leisure society that now characterises many developed countries and is also beginning to affect developing countries as their middle classes develop the travel.
• Tourist travel has become a global activity and it is assuming a much greater role in the leisure habits of developed societies now that/holidays and overseas travel have become much more accessible to all sections of the population.
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Introduction• Large sections of society in developing countries do
not have such access, since their daily lives revolve around meeting their everyday needs such as food, shelter, health, water and employment.
• Even though this situation is changing for some segments of the population in newly industrialising nations (India, Brasil, Thailand etc.), it is not the norm.
• In many western nations, tourist travel has been accompanied by the time-space compression, where perceived access to places on a global scale now seems much easier.
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• The growth in travel also poses many challenges for the transport industry since understanding the demand for tourist transport is a critical part of the strategic planning process for transport operators and organisations associated with the management and marketing of transport services for tourists.
• At government level, accurate information on the use of tourist transport infrastructure is critical when formulating transport policies and particularly in assessing the future demand by mode(s) of transport.
Introduction
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• At the level of individual transport operators, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the existing and likely patterns of demand for tourist transport, to ensure that they are able to meet the requirements of tourists, particularly during the peak demand period.
• This means that for transport providers high-quality market intelligence and statistical information are vital in the strategic planning process and day-to-day management, so that the services offered are responsive and carefully targeted at demand, cost effective and efficient.
Introduction
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• Ultimately, most transport companies seek to operate services on a commercial basis so that supply matches demand as closely as possible, but there are also situations in which such services are subsidised to meet social objectives not related to tourism.
• In such situations, tourism is really an added bonus for subsidised services such as rail, bus or air services to more remote and peripheral regions with a highly seasonal tourism industry.
Introduction
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The types of information required by decision-makers associated with tourist transport provision are usually gathered through the marketing research process and are likely to include the following;• the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of
tourist travel demand (e.g.age, sex, family status, social class, income and expenditure)
• the geographical origin and spatial distribution of demand in the generating region
• the geographical preferences, consumer behaviour and images of tourists for holiday destinations and tourist travel habits, including the duration of visit. (next page)
Introduction
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• when it is likely to occur (e.g. temporal and seasonal distributions of use)
• who is likely to organise the holiday (e.g. independently or as part of a package)
• the choice of transport likely to be used in the tourist transport system
• future patterns of demand (e.g. short- and long-term forecasts of tourist travel)
• government policy towards tourist transport operations• the implications of tourist travel demand for infrastructure
provision and investment in tourist modes of transport (e.g. aircraft, airports, passenger liners, ferries and ports).
Introduction - information required
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• The purpose of this chapter is to examine a range of the main types of data sources available to assess the demand for tourist transport at different spatial scales, from the world scale down to individual countries.
• International and domestic sources of data are introduced for transport and tourism, with the emphasis on the relative merits and weaknesses of each source.
• The discussion here is more focused on transporting the tourist
Introduction
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The international demand for tourist travel:understanding why people travel
• Authors discuss the economic determinants of tourism demand that are associated with the purchase of an intangible service, usually a holiday or transport service, as an experience.
• The consumption of tourist transport services as part of a package holiday, or as a separate service to meet a specific need, has manifested itself on a global scale in terms of the worldwide growth in international tourist travel.
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understanding why people travel
• Among the economic determinants of the growth in international tourism are rising disposable incomes and increased holiday entitlement in developed countries.
• Transport operators have stimulated demand by more competitive pricing of air travel and other forms of travel for international tourists.
• This has been accompanied by the 'internationalisation' and 'globalisation' of tourism as a business activity
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• As global tourism operators emerge through mergers, takeovers, strategic alliances investment in overseas destinations and diversification into other tourism services.
• One consequence is that tourist transport operators view the determinants of tourist travel as crucial to their short and long-term plans for service provision.
The international demand for tourist travel:understanding why people travel
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• While internationalisation was primarily about international links and operations, globalisation is a more embracing notion, which involves a different form of organisation and cuts across conventional concepts like the nation-state.
• Globalisation has had a profound effect on transport and tourism because it has aided the interconnectivity of places physically and remotely using new information communication technologies.
The international demand for tourist travel:understanding why people travel
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• Aside from the economic determinants of the demand for travel, the significance of psychological determinants of demand in explaining some of the reasons why tourists travel also discovered.
• Analysis of tourist travel motivators (excluding business travel) identifies reasons commonly cited to explain why people travel to tourist destinations for holidays.
The international demand for tourist travel
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Tourist Travel Motivators These motivators include; • A desire to escape from a mundane environment• The pursuit of relaxation and recuperation (recovery)
functions• An opportunity for play• The strengthening of family bonds (ties)
• Prestige, since different destinations can enable one to gain social enhancement among peers
• Social interaction• Educational opportunities• Wish fulfilment (completion)
• Shopping
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Classifying tourists• Although it is possible to identify a range of
motivators, it is also possible to classify tourists according to the type of holiday they are seeking and the travel experience they desire.
• For example, Eric Cohen (1972) distinguished between four types of tourist travellers as the organised mass tourist, the individual mass tourist, the explorers and the drifters
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• Clearly such a classification is fraught (full) with problems, since it does not take into account the increasing diversity of holidays undertaken and inconsistencies in tourist behaviour
• Some researchers suggest that one way of overcoming this difficulty is to consider the different destinations tourists choose to visit,
• Pearce (1992) produces a convincing argument that highlights the importance of considering the tourists destination choice.
Classifying tourists
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Tourist Motivations• As a result, tourism demand should not be
equated with tourism motivation. • Tourism demand is the outcome of tourists'
motivation as well as marketing, destination features and contingency (chance) factors such as money, health and time relating to the travellers' choice behaviour.
• Tourism demand can be expressed as the sum of realistic behavioural intentions to visit a specific location
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understanding why people travel
• Tourist motivation is then a part rather than the equivalent of tourism demand
• In other words, transport providers need to recognise the traveller's choice, behaviour and travel intentions at destinations to understand fully the wider transport requirements beyond simple aggregate patterns of travel statistics
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Motivation, tourist transport research and psychological issues
• Motivation has been described as one of the principal explanations of why people travel and, in its purest sense, motivation is the driving force behind human actions
• 'motivation is also about the causes of personal action in tourism and other activities‘
• It is therefore the starting point for studying tourist behaviour and beyond that for understanding systems of tourism including the use of transport modes
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tourist transport research and psychological issues
The literature on tourist transport is significantly different from the prevailing economic analysis of behaviour since;• it focuses on the traveller and different markets to
examine the different travel choices made in relation to leisure and tourism
• it considers traveller choices and mode of travel, which may be multi-modal during any tourist trip and have a great deal less predictability than commuter travel behaviour in time, space and modal use
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• the relevant literature on this area of motivation and the psychology of mode of tourist travel in relation to a number of areas of research including visitor satisfaction and benchmarking of service provision along with more qualitative approaches to route mapping by visitors has been identified.
• In addition, trip planning, route choice and the activities of specific market segments such as the senior market have attracted attention.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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• The social psychology of travel is clearly a complex area
• For ex., an analysis of tourist choice of travel mode among Dutch travellers suggests; life-cycle factors and use of the car for domestic trips is important but number of children and use of accommodation affect modal choice.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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• Figure 4.1 is a very helpful framework which examines the tourist-transport interface from a motivation perspective that reinforces many of the arguments that a continuum exists ranging from no travel in some cases to transport and tourism through transport for tourism
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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Figure 4.1: Conceptual map of the links between motivation, life-cycle, transport roles and the trevellers experience
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• The figure emphasises the significance of life-cycle factors and group motivation into core and additional emphases, developing a classification of the multiple roles of transport, where different experiences result.
• These are a complex series of interactions where the style of travel is shaped by numerous motivational factors, and even with a mode of travel such as car-based transport.
• Figure 4.1 illustrates that different factors motivate the self-drive market versus the non-self-drive market amongst car-borne travellers.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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• The implication of such research on motivation and demand is that governments and transport operators need to recognise what economic, social and psychological factors are stimulating tourist travel.
• All too often the social and psychological perspectives have been overlooked in economic analyses of travel
• But we do not forget that 'No single paradigm or model is likely to explain all tourism behaviour. No single typology is likely to have more than specific relevance'.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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• This may help in establishing the different types of travellers and their preferences for various destinations and specific activity patterns on holiday.
• Tour operators selling holidays need to recognise the complexity of tourist motivation to travel and airlines need to understand the precise effect on the availability of aircraft.
• In particular, they must be able to rotate and interchange different aircraft in a fleet to meet daily and seasonal travel requirements through complex logistical exercises.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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• As suggested by the authors, 'tourism is in fact both multi-motivational and made up of multiple groups of tourists, many of whom are experienced as tourists and versatile (multi dimentional) in their use of tourism'.
• This also means that infrastructures such as airports have to consider future investment and development plans.
• More specifically, transport operators will need to understand the range of motives and expectations of certain types of traveller since the level of service they provide will need to match the market and the requirements of travellers.
tourist transport research and psychological issues
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Data sources on international tourist travel• The analysis of tourism, tourists and their propensity to
travel and previous travel patterns is 'a complex process involving not only the visitor and his movements but also the destination and host community‘.
• Tourist transport providers will often have statistical information relating to their own organisation's services and tourist use. But, there are some questions as; How can a new entrant into the tourist transport business
examine the feasibility of providing a transport service? What statistical information on tourist transport is
available? How is it gathered? and Who publishes it?
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• On a global scale, there are vast differences in the availability of transport, indeed there is a stark(entire) contrast between a relatively immobile Third World and the highly mobile advanced economies ... much of the infrastructure is poorly maintained and in disrepair (bad) and is inadequate for present needs without the complication of growth of demand in the future
Data sources on international tourist travel
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• The global discrepancies (paradoxes) that exist in transport provision obviously have a major impact on the tourism-generating potential and patterns of demand which result
• One of the best sources to document such trends is the United Nations Statistical Yearbook, which records much of the growth in car ownership worldwide
Data sources on international tourist travel
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• An abstract of air transport and tourism data for selected Asian countries is shown in Table 4.1, which highlights many of the data problems of gaps in information and the problems of linking transport and tourism data together, although it does help to demonstrate underlying patterns of growth where data exists
Data sources on international tourist travel
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Aviation statistics
• One immediate problem that confronts the researcher interested in tourist transport is the absence of international statistics which monitor every mode of tourist travel on an up-to-date basis.
• For example, organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) publish annual statistics on international air travel for their members' airline operations.
• In the case of ICAO, its 2007 Annual Report summarises the state of airline operations for the 190 contracting states, which are:
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• In 2007, the world's airlines carried 2,260 million passengers, a rise of 5.5 % on 2006, which equates to a 6 % rise in international air traffic and a 4 %rise in domestic traffic.
• The traffic was distributed between North American airlines (33 %), Asia- Pacific airlines (29%), European airlines (27 %), Latin American, Caribbean and Middle Eastern airlines with 4 % each, and S.American airlines with 2 % of the traffic.
• The trend in passenger loadings had grown from 65 % in 1993 to 71 % in 2002 with a drop in 2001 to 69 % largely due to the after-effects of 9/11 rising to 76 % in 2006 and 77 % in 2007.
Aviation statistics
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• In 2007, 41 % of scheduled traffic volumes (including freight and mail) were dominated by airlines based in the USA (31 % ), Germany (5 %), the UK (5 % ) and Japan (6 %) with large domestic markets.
• For international scheduled traffic, the market was dominated by American airlines (17 %), Germany and the UK (7 % each) and Japan (6 %).
• The issue of airline profitability has become a massive one for many airlines, especially in the USA.
• This is because since 9/11 the global airline industry reported losses for each year up to the end of 2006.
Aviation statistics
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• The most successful airlines in 2003 (i.e. those in net profit) were those with a diversified portfolio of passenger and freight business (e.g. Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific), with some height-only operators (e.g. Federal Express) although what is notable is the dominance of Asian operators in the Top 25 despite the impact of SARS.
• This reflects their overall productivity and lower cost basis.
• Airlines Asian carriers, notably Singapore Airlines had lower unit costs than major US carriers
Aviation statistics
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• In terms of the scale of passenger activity at the world's major airports, data for the top 10 airports in 2003 based on data from Airport Council International highlights the dominance of US airports and a number of European hubs, but in contrast to 2004, Beijing now enters as a major airport in ninth place.
• The data is unable to identify tourist and leisure trips, being a broad measure of terminal passengers and international travel.
Aviation statistics
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Bus and Coach Travel
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Bus and Coach Travel
• In contrast to air transport, road based bus and coach travel is rarely documented with the exception of the UN Statistics Yearbook, which provides a generic overview.
• Coach travel usually refers to inter-urban, rural or urban-based trips.
• There is a number of distinct forms of bus/coach service exist for tourists including their use of domestic and international scheduled coach services, coaches for group travel and different companies who use coaches and buses for sightseeing in destinations.
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• In recent years, innovations in the destination sightseeing services have seen all-day excursions operating on a hop on/hop off basis as well as the development of dedicated airport shuttle services and tailor-made services.
• At the EU level, the Energy and Transport in Figures documents trends since 1970 and other useful studies are Jane's Urban Transport Systems Handbook along with many of the periodicals published on the bus and coach industry that provide market intelligence.
Bus and Coach Travel
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• On a global scale, however, the most useful is the data generated by the Union lnternationale des Transport Publics (www.uitp.com) and the data from individual operators (where it exists).
• The scale of this industry in the EU is often underestimated, some of which is supported by tourism since the bus and coach sector employs around 10 million people; although with a few notable exceptions, it remains a poorly understood sector by researchers
Bus and Coach Travel
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According to the North West Regional Developments Agency (NWRDA) study in 2008 on Coach Tourism in England's North West, the' coach market was predominantly based upon 60-70 year old travellers who:
• took 2 million trips a year to the region• spent £ 120 million a year as a result of coach tourism
in the region• accounted for around 1:20 of all domestic staying trips
in North West England• visited two dominant locations: Blackpool (50 % ) and
the Lake Distric (30 %).
Bus and Coach Travel
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• The market has seen increased pressure from low-cost airlines although the luxury end of the market still has considerable potential for growth along with special interest tours (e.g. seeing behind the film set of popular drama series).
• Combined with forecasts of an ageing population, the NWRDA report suggests this may be an opportunity for the coach market along with the increasing inwestment in higher specification vehicles.
Bus and Coach Travel
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Rail travel statistics
• Rail travel is comparatively well documented with a number of annual surveys (e.g. Jane's World Railways, United Nation's reports) and data from the UIC, which is the worldwide railway association.
• Other studies such as the OECD's (2002) Trends in the Transport Sector 1970-2000 and OECD (2005) OECD in Figures 2005 - Transport provide useful time series data, as do the EU's Energy and Transport in Figures.
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Cruising and ferry transport statistics
• The United Nations Statistics Yearbook is a good starting point for maritime trans port, but there are clear differences between what is a tourism-only activity (e.g. cruising) and the use of ferries to cross natural barriers (e.g. seas and lakes) for tourism and non-tourism purposes.
• Most governments provide statistical data on ferry crossings that are compiled from government and private-sector owned ports and services.
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Tourism statisticsWithin an international context, tourism statistics provide an invaluable insight into:
• tourist arrivals in different regions of the world and for specific countries
• the volume of tourist trips• types of tourism (e.g. holidaymaking, visiting friends
and relatives and businesstravel)• the number of nights spent in different countries
by tourists• tourist expenditure on transport-related services.
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• Such information may indicate the order of magnitude of tourist use of transport systems and their significance in different locations
• Unlike respondents in other forms of social survey work, tourists are a transient' and mobile population.
• This raises problems related to which social survey method and sampling technique one should use to generate reliable and accurate statistical information that is representative of the real world.
Tourism statistics
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It is possible to discern (recognise) three common types of tourism survey:• pre-travel studies of tourists' intended travel habits
and likely use of tourist transport;• studies of tourists in transit or at their destination,
to provide information on their actual behaviour and plans for the remainder of their holiday or journey;
• post-travel studies of tourists once they have returned to their place of residence.
Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages with each approach.
Tourism statistics
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• Pre-travel studies may indicate the potential destinations that tourists would like to visit on their next holiday, but it is difficult to assess the extent to which hol iday intentions are converted to actual travel.
• In contrast post-travel studies are used, they often incur the problem of actually locating and eliciting responses from tourists that accurately record a previous event or experience .
• Each approach has a valuable role and generally individual transport operators and tourism organisations use the approach appropriate to their information needs
Tourism statistics
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• The most comprehensive and widely used sources of tourism statistics that directedly and indirectly examine international tourist travel are produced by the UN-World Tourism Organization (WTO) and OECD.
• National governments also compile statistics on international tourism for their own country (inbound
travel) and the destinations chosen by outbound travellers.
• These are normally commissioned by national tourism organisations as a specialist research function.
Tourism statistics
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WTO publishes a number of annual publications, including the Yearbook of Tourism Statistics which includes statistical information in the following order: • world summary of international tourism statistics• tourist arrivals• accommodation capacity by regions• trends in world international tourism arrivals,
receipts and exports• arrivals of cruise passengers(next p.)
Tourism statistics
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• domestic tourism• tourism payments (including international tourism
receipts by countries calculated in US $ millions, excluding international fare receipts)
• tourism motivations (arrivals from abroad and purpose of visit)
• tourism accommodation• country studies that examine the detailed
breakdown of tourism statistics collected for each area, including tourism seasonality
Tourism statistics
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Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
• Forecasting the demand for tourist transport is essential for commercial operators, 'whether in the public or private sector as they will seek to maximise revenue and profits in moving towards maximum efficiency in [their] use of resources‘
• A manager must plan for the future in order to minimise the risk of failure or, more optimistically, to maximise the possibilities of success.
• In order to plan, he must use forecasts
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• Forecasts will always be made, whether by guesswork, teamwork or the use of complex models, and the accuracy of the forecasts will affect the quality of the management decision.
• Reliable forecasts are essential for managers and decision-makers involved in service provision within the tourist transport system to try and ensure adequate supply is available to meet demand, while avoiding oversupply, since this can erode the profitability of their operation
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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• In essence, forecasts of tourism demand are es sential for efficient planning by airlines, shipping companies, railways, coach oper ators, hoteliers, tour operators.
• Forecasting is the process associated with an assessment of future changes in the demand for tourist transport.
• It must be stressed that 'forecasting is not an exact science'
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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The principal methods of fore casting are:• 'the projection by extrapolation, of historic trends'
(i.e. how the previous per formance of demand may shape future patterns)
• extrapolation, subject to the application of ... [statistical analysis using] weights or variables'
• and structured group discussions among a panel of tourism transport experts may be used to assess factors determining future traffic forecasts (known as the Delphi method)
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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A. Bull classifies the quantitative techniques forecasters use in terms of the degree of statistical and mathematical complexity based on:• time-series analysis of trends (e.g. seasonality in
travel), which involve simple sta tistical calculations to consider how past trends may be replicated in the future;
• economic theory models, used in econometricsThe important issue to recognise here is that in forecasting, a number of variables are examined which relate to factors directly and indirectly influencing tourist travel.
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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These variables are considered according to their statistical relationship with each other. A.Bull notes that the most common variables used are:• number of tourist trips;• total tourist expenditure and expenditure per
capita;• market shares of tourism;• the tourism sector's share of gross domestic
product (GDP).
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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• Depending on the complexity of the methodology employed, the forecasting model may examine one dependent variable (e.g. tourist trips) and how other inde pendent variables (e.g. the state of the national and international economy, leisure time, levels of disposable income, inflation and foreign exchange rates) affect the demand for tourist trips.
• This can be used to assess how the demand for tourist transport will change on a global basis and within different countries over the next decade.
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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• Ultimately, forecasting attempts to establish how consumer demand for tourist transport has shaped previous trends and how these may change in the future, often over a 5- to 10-year period.
• On a world scale, the detailed study by Edwards and Graham (2000) Long Term Tourism Forecasts to the Year 2005, and subsequent updates, remains an invaluable and widely cited source that examines the future de mand for tourism.
Forecasting the demand for tourist transport
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End of Chapter slides