Heckit modelling of the two-stage tourist choice processgoing on holiday and tourism

Resumo

The objective of this paper is to decompose the process of tourist choice into two stages: taking a holiday and tourism expenditures, using the Heckit model, which avoids the problems of the methodologies applied to date. We propose hypotheses on the effect on the above decisions of tourist characteristics relating to the destination, personal restrictions and socio-demographic and psychographic characteristics. The empirical application, which is carried out in Spain on a sample of 3,781 individuals, finds a two-stage tourist choice process as the expenditure decision is correlated with that of taking a holiday. In addition, these decisions are also explained by individual tourist characteristics.