Andreas Papatheodorou

Why people travel to different places

Abstract This study aims at providing an economic explanation for the observed variety in the actual consumer choice of destinations. Despite its contribution to tourism research, the traditional demand theory is insufficient to justify comprehensively the direction of tourist flows in space and time, mainly because it cannot account for the importance of product differentiation and corporate power. To address these issues, the Gorman/Lancaster characteristics framework is applied to tourism and a comparative exercise is undertaken in six different fields. The theoretical conclusions are appealing as they match demand and supply, offering a holistic answer to the question of tourist choice and a useful benchmark for further research in the area.

Global Economic Crisis and Tourism: Consequences and Perspectives

The International Academy for the Study of Tourism convened a session on global economic crisis and tourism during its 20th anniversary conference in Mallorca, Spain, in June 2009. Three articles featuring on the impacts of economic downturn on tourism in Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and North America have resulted and appeared in this issue of the Journal of Travel Research. This summary aims at an integrated discussion on the consequences and perspectives on the global economic crisis and tourism. The prospects of world tourism for the years to come are also reflected.

The demand for international tourism in the Mediterranean region

The paper studies the demand for international tourism, in the Mediterranean region. First a review of the most important attempts to model econometrically the demand for international tourism in the past is given, followed by a formal presentation of the proposed theoretical model. In particular, a version of the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) is adopted and a description of the variables involved and their sources, together with the estimation procedure, are provided. The diagrammatic analysis performed contributes to a better understanding of the evolution of the dependent variable over time. The results with respect to the expenditure as well as to the own- and cross-price elasticities may be regarded as econometrically satisfactory and a reasonable economic explanation is given.

Exploring competitiveness in Mediterranean resorts.

This paper examines competitiveness and efficiency issues related to destinations in the Mediterranean region. Following a detailed discussion on methodology, a hedonic analysis is performed, in which the price of holiday packages is regressed on a number of package characteristics and operator and location scaling factors. Those that are statistically significant among the latter are subsequently used in a second-step correlation framework, which aims to offer a valid interpretation of the observed price differentials among core and peripheral holiday destinations. On these grounds, a number of policy measures are finally discussed.

Civil aviation regimes and leisure tourism in Europe

The paper discusses the implications of modern civil aviation regimes for tourism in Europe. A discussion of the relation between air transport and tourism sets the foundation for the study focus. The market strategies of the players involved are examined within a multidimensional framework of corporate rivalry during regulation and liberalisation. The connotations for tourism origins, destinations and consumers are presented and policy measures are suggested for the alleviation of emerging problems.

International Tourism Forecasts: Time-Series Analysis of World and Regional Data

Forecasting is an essential analytical tool in tourism policy and planning. This paper focuses on international tourism arrivals and receipts at nominal, real and per capita levels. It uses modern time-series techniques based on the period 1960–2000 to produce forecasts for 2001–2010 in the six major World Tourism Organization regions and the world. The initial diagrammatic analysis of existing data suggests that, despite conventional wisdom, evolution in the mass tourism era has not been rosy. Performance differs dramatically among the regions, fluctuations are sharp and negative tourism growth is not unusual in real and per capita terms. Similarly, the subsequent forecasts occasionally have negative signs. Policy makers should, therefore, take action to increase revenue generation but not at the expense of sustainable tourism development.

Modelling Tourism Development: A Synthetic Approach

This paper produces an innovative model of tourism development by creatively amalgamating the framework of agglomeration economics with discrete choice and oligopolistic competition. Consumer choice is examined simultaneously from a dual perspective (discretely at the inter-resort level and continuously in the context of intra-resort consumption) to encapsulate systemic and probabilistic factors. In conjunction with the treatment of dynamic issues, the paper then performs a welfare analysis by comparing the spatio-temporal configuration under a social planner with the one of a decentralized regime. Finally, policy considerations and directions for future research and operationalization are drawn.

Corporate strategies of British tour ­operators in the Mediterranean region: An economic geography approach

This paper studies the market and spatial corporate strategies of the British mass tour operations sector in the context of the Mediterranean region. A number of methodological issues are discussed and various indexes of market and territorial concentration are derived. These are subsequently computed in the empirical section, where a correlation analysis is also performed at different scales of spatial aggregation. The analysis aims at being useful for destination planners and regional developers who seek a tool of linking tour operations with tourism urbanization. Moreover, the paper may contribute to the development of more general competition and marketing studies in tourism, which aim at evaluating the implications of corporate power and interdependence.

Hedonic Price Analysis

Pricing is a strategic choice for all firms. It not only generates revenue for a company to survive but can also be used as a communicator, as a bargaining tool and a competitive weapon. The consumer can use price as a means of comparing products, judging relative value for money or product quality (Brassington and Pettitt, 2007). In tourism, pricing decisions are often complex. For example, the price of a hotel room is normally affected by seasonality, type of the room, facilities provided, or even attributes of the external environment such as noise, pollution, distance from a specific landmark, or outside views. From a managerial perspective, it is critically important to understand consumer perceptions of each of the attributes associated with the price: characteristics that a customer is willing to make an extra payment for and those which are irrelevant in the determination of consumer choices and preferences (Chen and Rothschild, 2010). Hedonic price analysis (HPA) makes it easier to discern which characteristics are valued by consumers and to what extent (Falk, 2008). In addition, HPA is also able to put a price estimate onto non–market product or service characteristics. For example, Mahan (1997) found that proximity to river streams had a significant influence on willingness to pay (i.e., respondents valued the proximity to river streams equal to

Tourism, Transport Geography and Industrial Economics: A Synthesis in the Context of Mediterranean Islands

13.81 per foot). Hence, this technique is particularly useful for managerial decision making and evaluating individual preferences. In this chapter, we will explain the theory of HPA, followed by an illustration of its application in tourism research, and concluded by a discussion of managerial implications.