Previous research has concentrated on traffic and health-related effects in relation to arrival patterns (e.g., stress in connection with means of transport, travel distance, and time). However, tourist mobility behavior during a vacation and potential health-related associations as well as its correlation with physical activity habits and mobility patterns at home seems to have barely been examined. To address this research gap, the study at hand applied a mixed-method approach in three tourism destinations in Tyrol, Austria. The study examined tourists’ mobility as well as their physical activity at home and at the holiday destination. Results show that the preferred transport mode (arrival and on-site) is the private car, due to its flexibility and comfort. Hotel front desks, as the main information source, determine tourists’ behavioral aspects during a vacation. General mobility routines show differences between everyday life and holiday situations, and physical activity is important for the overall satisfaction of tourists, which proves to be more intense and frequent during a vacation than in everyday life. Seven percent of the tourists participating in the research stated that they had changed their daily mobility behavior after their return, with most of them walking or cycling more often. This study contributes to research in the field of sustainable tourist mobility and physical activity behavior and highlights the necessity for further specific analyses.

In the face of a continuous increase in the number of tourists in the Alps, the associated traffic volumes, and the resulting negative externalities, there is an urgent need to design policies capable of managing tourist traffic efficiently and to invest in transport systems and infrastructure wisely, given the limited financial, spatial and environmental resources. Unfortunately, while there is a considerable research interest in long-distance travel and arrival/departure patterns of tourists, research on tourist mobility during the stay at the destination is almost non-existent. This prevents policy-makers from making informed decisions backed by scientific evidence. The paper presents a data collection study that contributes to filing this gap. This ‘data paper’ reports on the motivation, design and administration of a bespoke travel-activity survey of tourists at vacation destinations. It informs other researchers about the encountered difficulties and helps them optimize data collection effort in their future studies. Besides the contribution to survey methodology, the paper reports on a rare and policy-relevant dataset, provides descriptive results, and thereby contributes to evidence-based design of transport policies in tourist regions. With this paper, we also want to inspire and invite researchers to conduct further quantitative and modeling work in this under-studied field.

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ZusammenfassungAnhand von Befragungen in der Tiroler Gemeinde Alpbach wird untersucht, in wie weit sich das Bewusstsein für die Zusammenhänge zwischen Tourismus und Klimawandel bei Bewohnern, Beschäftigten und Gästen unterscheidet. Zudem wird eine Gesamtjahresbilanz der Mobilität von Gästen, Bewohnern und Beschäftigten und des damit verbundenen CO2-Ausstoßes dieser Gemeinde abgeschätzt. Zwar ist bei allen Gruppen ein grundsätzliches Problembewusstsein festzustellen und eine gewisse Bereitschaft für Maßnahmen zur Reduktion von Energieverbrauch und CO2-Emissionen auf Reisen, soweit diese keine wesentlichen Einschränkungen im Urlaubsverhalten betreffen. Im Detail zeigen sich jedoch signifikante Unterschiede. Da die Gesamtbilanz der Mobilität die hohe Bedeutung der An- und Abreise für die CO2-Jahresbilanz untermauert, sind mit dem Wissen über das vorhandene Bewusstsein Maßnahmen abzuleiten.

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