Examining the importance of spatial aspects of travel routes: A multi-method approach

Abstract

A well-designed travel route can increase tourists’ satisfaction and revisit intentions by helping them explore popular or/and hidden places conveniently and thus better experiencing the destination. The popularity of travel route development has resulted in tourists using cities’ infrastructure to enable travel from areas with well-structured accessibility to more inaccessible areas. Despite the importance of the accessibility of travel routes to enhance travel experiences, the tourism literature lacks an understanding of how travel routes should consider not only the physical distance between tourist destinations but also accessibility using mobility within smart tourism cities. Therefore, this research aims to examine the importance of considering accessibility in assessing a travel route. Drawing on the distance decay theory and the concept of the effective tourism exclusion zone (ETEZ), we argue that a travel route can be adopted when every part of the route is accessible in terms of time cost. To achieve the objective, this research adopted a multi-method approach. We explored how much developers consider accessibility when generating a travel route via a case study in study 1. An experiment, study 2, strengthened the results of study 1, presenting cause-and-effect relationships. This study provides theoretical and practical implications for developers of travel routes.