Abstract:
Studies of tourism demand are numerous. But studies of how consumers apportion
discretionary resources to tourism and across other competing categories of discretionary
expenditure are non-existent. Therefore, how individuals and households make trade-offs
between, or assess the respective utilities of, the various categories of discretionary
expenditure and allocate discretionary financial resources, appears to be unknown. This study
seeks to address this need by examining discretionary expenditure through choice
experiments. The data provides insights into how each type of discretionary expenditure is
valued and how each type competes for a share of the discretionary expenditure 'pie'. We
discuss the results with an emphasis on the implications for tourism marketing.
