A destination too far? Modelling destination accessibility and distance decay in tourism

Distance and price have frequently been identified as the major factors affecting tourists’ decision-making process. These factors have long been common themes in economic geography, defining theories of location. This paper explores and demonstrates how a modified Von Thünen Location Rent Model can be applied to a destination’s tourist origin patterns, replacing the concept of location rent with that of a destination’s tourism accessibility. The results provide a potentially valuable source of information for both tourism planning authorities and destination marketers. Analysing the model’s output and comparing it with actual tourism data show how a destination’s accessibility is affected by its distance from the tourist’s origin as well as highlighting the different destination accessibility gradients associated with different types of tourism. This information could be useful in deciding where there is potential to increase tourism to the destination and could be used to pinpoint marketing initiatives and travel promotions more efficiently. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.