Discretionary expenditure and tourism consumption: insights from a choice experiment

Authors

G. I. Crouch, La Trobe University
H. Oppewal, Monash University
T. Huybers, University of New South WalesFollow
Sara Dolnicar, University of WollongongFollow
J. J. Louviere, University of Technology, Sydney
T. Devinney, University of New South Wales

RIS ID

22373

Publication Details

This article has been accepted for publication by Sage and will be published as: Crouch, GI, Oppewal, H, Huybers, T, Dolnicar, S, Louviere, JJ & Devinney, T, Discretionary expenditure and tourism consumption: insights from a choice experiment, Journal of Travel Research. Copyright Sage Publications Ltd 2007.

Abstract

Consumers’ decisions to spend money on tourism occur in the context of the other potential uses of their resources and corresponding values or utilities. While many studies have examined the demand for travel and tourism there is no known study that reveals how individuals and households make tradeoffs when allocating their spending between various potential categories of discretionary expenditure. This study assesses these tradeoffs empirically through the conduct of a choice experiment on a random sample of Australian consumers. The results provide insight into how each category of discretionary expenditure is valued and how spending in each category competes for a share of the discretionary expenditure ‘pie’. We discuss the results with an emphasis on the implications for tourism.