Modeling the Intra-Destination Travel Behavior of Tourists

Although tourism is responsible for a large part of traffi c load, in particular in the Alpine countries, there is a lack of knowledge on travel patterns of tourists staying at the destination and factors infl uencing their intra-destination travel behavior. Consequently, local authorities and administration do not have the empirical evidence necessary for policy-making and -evaluation and must base their decisions on conjectures. This work combines data collection and mod-eling techniques developed in transportation research with existing knowledge in the fi eld of tourism and travel research to fi ll this gap. Based on unique survey data c ollected with the use of bespoke travel-activity diaries, the thesis employs Discrete Choice models for the analysis of tourist transport mode decisions for intra-destination trips, identifi es the impactful factors and measures their effect size within the collected sample. The work also reports elasticities with respect to changes in travel time and travel cost, and estimates of Value of Travel Time Savings among tourists. This provides decision- and policy-makers with valuable outcomes needed for project appraisal, cost-benefi t-analyses and designing ev-idence-based transport policy, as well as numbers necessary for effective mobil-ity management in tourist regions that are struggling with transport problems and the resultant negative externalities.