Managing tourism products and destinations embedding public good components: A hedonic approach

Decision making by tourism firms' managers and public policymakers is complex for many reasons. One of them is that many tourism products embed a combination of multiple public (external to the decisions of individual firms, related to location and essentially non-rival) and private attributes. Since tourists get satisfaction from each of the components of the product variety bought, managers face the daunting task of putting together, promoting and pricing a bundle of heterogeneous components. This paper draws on hedonic pricing literature to obtain insights (beyond making correct pricing decisions) for tourism firms' managers and public policymakers when dealing with products and destinations embedding public good components. An application to coastal hotels in tourism destinations of Catalonia is presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.