 Economics of tourist's consumption behaviour: Some evidence from AustraliaSarath Divisekera Tourism Management, 2010, vol. 31, issue 5, 629-636 Abstract: This study analyses the consumption behaviour of international tourists from Australia's four major source markets: New Zealand, UK, USA and Japan. A preliminary analysis of their consumption expenditures reveals intriguing similarities as well as diversities in consumption patterns. These are sought to understand in terms of the utility-maximising framework in which observed differences in prices and incomes play a key role. Based on the neoclassical economic theory of consumer behaviour, models incorporating five major components of tourist consumption – Accommodation, Food, Transport, Shopping and Entertainment- are estimated. Overall, the level of tourist consumption is found to be highly sensitive to incomes but less sensitive to prices. The low price sensitivity suggests tourists perceive the commodities as necessities and may also reflect their captivity at the destination, masking the underlying true price sensitivities. An important dimension underlying these findings is the possible lack of information about the destination leading to sub-optimal consumption choices. Keywords: Economics of tourist consumption; Tourist expenditure allocation models; Tourist consumption behaviour; Demand systems; Tourist consumption models (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:31:y:2010:i:5:p:629-636 DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.001 Access Statistics for this article Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier |
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