Determinants of the Tourism Demand: An Application of Conditional Quantile Approach for the U.S.

Abstract

This study examines relationship between economic factors, trip-related variables, and socio-demographic variables and visitor expenditures in the U.S. travelers using by conditional quantile specification. Using data from TNS during the 3rd quarter 2005, and conditional quantile specification, significant factors on visitor expenditures are all travel party member, number of nights spent on trip, and household income. Moreover even though marginal effects of household income on visitor expenditures are different through different expenditure level, then it has positive effect on visitor expenditures through different expenditure level. And visitor near the middle of the conditional expenditures are most sensitive to income changes. Our findings should i) be useful to many travel organizers and marketers for better understanding in the U.S., and ii) contribute towards a classification of the unclear effect that scale of economic factors have been found to have in previous studies of the tourism economics.