Impact of Socio-Demographics, Fuel Price and Airfare on the Domestic Overnight Travel Decision in Australia

Abstract

Domestic overnight travel is one of the most significant sectors in the Australian tourism industry. Understanding the extent to which the crucial factors influence tourists' choice of overnight trip can be a key to successful marketing and strategic planning in the domestic travel industry. To understand the characteristics of the domestic overnight tourists, this paper analyses the data by means of a proposed new impact analysis approach, which overcomes some limitations of the conventional impact analysis approach. It also investigates how socio-demographic factors, fuel price and domestic airfares affect the probability of tourists opting for domestic overnight trips. Impact analysis is a method for analysing the association of the impact factor with the response variable in terms of estimated probability. This research demonstrates that household income, country of birth, life-cycle stage and home state are four of the most significant categories that generate the highest maximum impact on the overnight trip decision.