Factors Influencing Visitor's Choices of Urban Destinations in North ...

• Public transportation score obtained from “Places Rated Almanac” publicationwas marginally significant.• Urban Tourism Marketing plays an important role in attracting more tourists.Tourism marketing contributes to the increase in visits across 33 cities included inthe sample.• Tourists want to be entertained. For example, the combination of casinos withamusement parks and specific structures (i.e. Statue of Liberty or CN Tower)supports the argument that tourist wants to be entertained.• Quality shopping is an important part of the tourism experience. Quality-ratedshopping areas explain more variation in visits than total count of this type ofattractions.Regression-Specific ConclusionsIn this section, Global Insight addresses the regression-specific results for fiveeconometric models.Model 1: In Model 1, the number of visits was regressed on the number of popularentertainment types of attractions with the one-star rating, the number of shopping areaswith the one-star rating, and the number of hotel rooms. The adjusted R 2 for this model is69%. For more details about this model see Technical Appendix Section B. The mainconclusions of this model are as follows:• On average across all cities, by building a one-star attraction from a popularentertainment category, the number of visitors will increase by 600,000.• On average across all cities, by building a one-star shopping area, the number ofvisitors will increase by 1.15 million.• On average across all cities, by increasing the number of hotel rooms by 100, thenumber of visitors will increase by 10,000.• Combination of one-star attractions from the popular entertainment category withone-star shopping areas supports the argument that tourists want to beentertained.• Quality-rated shopping areas and attractions from the popular entertainmentcategory explain more variation in visits than total count of these types ofattractions.• Clustering of attractions is important. Combination of quality-rated shoppingareas and attractions from the popular entertainment category produces higheradjusted R 2 than these types of attractions taken individually.• Infrastructure is important in explaining tourist visitations since hotel roomcount was statistically significant.Model 2: In Model 2, the number of visits was regressed on the number of popularentertainment types of attractions with the two-star rating and the number of hotel rooms.22