IDENTIFYING ANTECEDENT FACTORS TO THE TRAVELER'S PURSUIT OF A MULTIDESTINATION TRAVEL ITINERARY

Abstract

In recent times, several studies have investigated a particular form of travel known as multidestination travel. Such travel involves the tourist's decision to visit a minimum of two tourist destinations within a single travel itinerary and is particularly common in the context of international travel. In the Australian context, at least 60% of all international visitors to the country pursue a multidestination, as opposed to a monodestination, travel itinerary, whereby a destination is defined for the purposes of this study as a “tourism region” as designated by the Bureau of Tourism Research. While the literature has proposed a number of intuitive reasons that explain why a tourist is more or less inclined towards a multidestination itinerary, studies have yet to empirically investigate such reasons. This study presents the findings from exploration of a secondary database, the International Visitor Survey, on what factors appear to influence the extent of multidestination travel conducted by international visitors to Australia. The results of a multiple-regression analysis indicate the most influential factors include the tourist's desire to reduce existing travel risks, the need to accommodate variety-seeking behavior, and whether or not the tourist is visiting friends and relatives.