How far will we travel? A global distance pattern of international travel from both demand and supply perspectives

Ya-Yen Sun and Pei-Chun Lin
Additional contact information
Ya-Yen Sun: The University of Queensland, Australia
Pei-Chun Lin: National Cheng Kung University

Tourism Economics, 2019, vol. 25, issue 8, 1200-1223

Abstract: The travel distance of international journeys critically determines our reliance on different transportation modes and the associated carbon intensity. This study quantified the influence of macrolevel determinants to the inbound and outbound average distance per visitor from a panel data of 152 countries using spatial econometric analysis. Results confirmed that national development and transport capacity assisted the spatial expansion of outbound travel, while tourism competitiveness, geographic attributes, and institutional arrangements regarding people’s mobility facilitate inbound visits from distant source markets. A high level of heterogeneity was found across five continents where the distance friction effect through geographic barrier, transport accessibility, and the freedom of people’s movement exhibited a different level of influences. To manage the spatial expansion of international travels for a sustainable transport future, a strong geopolitical integration system across countries within the region and adjustments to the aviation capacity to disfavor long-haul flights have been proposed.

Keywords: connectivity; distance decay effect; international travel distance; national development; tourism competitiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354816618825216 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:toueco:v:25:y:2019:i:8:p:1200-1223

DOI: 10.1177/1354816618825216

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Tourism Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().