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attractions. They include basic infrastructure,
accommodation, transportation, catering
services, entertainment, shopping facilities and
visitor information at the destination. Amenities do
not usually in themselves attract tourists, but the
lack of amenities might cause tourists to avoid a
particular destination because these provide the
basic facilities which are regarded as contributing
to the quality of the destination. Amenities
harmonise and enhance the destination attractions.
Third, accessibility can be referred as the
relative ease or difficulty with which tourists can
reach the destinations of their choice. Destination
access is mainly a matter of transport infrastructure
such as airports, harbours, roads and railways. Ease
of access from the origin to the destination, and
ease of movement within and among destinations,
are also important factors for the viability of
regions.
Fourth, images can be regarded as the ideas
and beliefs which tourists hold about the destinations.
Numerous studies have revealed that a
destination possesses an image and the choice is
influenced by the tourists' images of alternative
destinations, whether these images are true or not.
Therefore, images are another focal point of
destination marketing. Finally, one of the key
factors in destination selection appears to be the
price, the sum of what it costs for travel,
accommodation and participation in a range of
selected services when there. The price varies by
choice of accommodation, seasonality and the
distance to a destination.
The terms `destination' and `product' are often
confused. The former is often considered to be a
tourism product in itself, but some scholars argue
that the destination is simply a geographical unit
within which any number of differing products
can be purchased and experienced. The product
can be seen as the total tourism experience
which comprises a combination of all the service
elements, which the tourist consumes from the
time they leave home to the time of return. Thus
the total product is much larger than the
destination itself, and usually embodies several
tourism products. Hence, a destination may be
viewed as part of the products of the tourism
industry.
See also: destination choice; image; life cycle,
destination; marketing, destination
Further reading
Burkart, A.J. and Medlik, S. �1981) Tourism:Past,
Present and Future, 2nd edn, London: Heinemann.
French, C.N., Craig-Smith, S.J. and Collier, A.
�1995) Principles of Tourism, Melbourne: Longman.
Pearce, D.G. �1995) Tourism Today:A Geographical
Analysis, 2nd edn, Harlow: Longman Scientific &
Technical.
Travis, A.S. �1989) `Tourism destination area
development �from theory into practice)', in
Tourism Marketing and Management Handbook, New
York: Prentice Hall, 487±98.
destination choice
destination choice 145
BAE-HAENG CHO, AUSTRALIA
Destination choice is the main focus of consumer
decision making research in tourism, aimed at
improving the understanding of how tourists
choose a destination from the many available
to them. Individual's images or perceptions, at
least partially derived from their attitudes toward
a destination's perceived tourism attributes, have
been linked to destination preference and selection.
As a result, most attempts to understand and
predict destination choice include measurement of
the importance of various destination attributes �for
example, climate, natural and cultural attractions,
infrastructure) and the extent to which various
alternatives are perceived to possess those attributes.
Destination choice models incorporate the key
conceptual elements of traveller related input
variables �including motivation), external stimuli
and inputs �including destination marketing) and
choice set structure and development. Issues
related to decision alternatives include the attributes
used to evaluate choices and the decision
rules used to combine information from each
alternative and attribute in order to make a final
destination selection. Choice set theory is based on
the notion that, due to information processing