Short-term responses of Dutch vacationers to a sharp increase in transport costs

Abstract

This paper investigates vacationers’ short-term responses to a sharp increase in transport costs. It aims to (1) acquire an understanding of the relative popularity of the different types of responses among vacationers and (2) explore whether there are distinct market segments of vacationers that respond differently to a sharp increase in transport costs. Data are obtained from a novel, tailor-made questionnaire which was done in the Netherlands in 2012. Results show that no single response is either very popular or unpopular. Furthermore, using latent class cluster analysis, four market segments (classes) of vacationers are identified that have markedly distinct response patterns. It was found that Age and Income explain class membership.