Destination Planning Concepts

Establishing Influence Areas of Attractions in Rural Destinations

“…In line with Lew & Mckercher's (2006) Mackercher & Lau's (2008 and Mckercher & Lew's (2004) findings about the influence areas of attractions in all three cases,the destinations are largely determined by the spatial relationship between the accommodation supply and attractions. However, whilst a strong body of literature affirms that attractions are the core elements around which tourism develops (Gunn, 1993;Kušen, 2010;Leiper, 1990;Lew, 1987;Richards, 2002), these results clearly demonstrate that attractions and accommodation are interdependent and that the location and capacity of accommodation hubs also exerts a significant impact on tourist flows within a destination. This has been identified through the application of a distinctly different methodological approach to that of the aforementioned.…”

“…Although gravity models have re-emerged recently with improvements in tourism demand modelling, such probabilistic approaches can still overlook the complexity of travel flows, and there are few studies which consider the influence area or territoriality of flows with the focus on the accommodation side, (Shoval et al, 2011, Lew & McKercher, 2006Smallwood et al, 2012). Despite a lack of empirical grounding, the influence area within a destination can be theoretically conceptualized through the Model of Attractions developed by Gunn (1993) who recognized the centrality of attractions (or a nucleus) which need to include an outer zone with services and facilities able to support tourism.…”

“…As attractions constitute a key motivation for visiting a particular destination (Gunn, 1993;Kušen, 2010;Leiper, 1990;Richards, 2002), tourists' logical decisionmaking process first entails deciding upon an attraction to visit (whether it is a specific site, or a wider area) and then choosing a proximal site of accommodation (Gunn, 1993;Leiper, 1990). Furthermore, in multi-destination trips, where several attractions form the objective of the trip (Lue et al, 1993), tourists must consider the spatial dispersion of the different attractions and their attractiveness level as well as selecting their accommodation base.…”

“…Furthermore, as assistive and mobile technologies become more widespread in their application, tourists are more empowered to organize their own itineraries on the basis of more personalized criteria using a wide range of information sources outside of traditional channels and with both the media and social media playing an increasingly prominent role (Llodrà-Riera, Martínez-Ruiz, Jiménez-Zarco, & Izquierdo-Yusta, 2015). Destination areas may transcend political boundaries, thereby individual tourism actors may be limiting development initiatives between tourism actors through ignoring how tourists geographically consume the destination (Gunn, 1993;Ioannides, Nielsen, & Billing, 2006;Lovelock & Boyd, 2006, Yang, 2018.…”

“…In order to fill these gaps and in meeting the demand to understand tourists desires and needs, the aim of this paper is to rethink tourism destinations by considering how tourists consume destinations, with the focus on the visitation of tourism attractions. Given that attractions are considered to be the central element of the leisure tourism process and the basic elements around which a tourism destination develops (Gunn, 1993;Kušen, 2010;Leask, 2010;Leiper, 1990;Lew, 1987;Richards, 2002), this paper seeks to clarify the territorial influence of tourism attractions once the tourist is at the destination, extending the sphere of analysis beyond administrative boundaries. To do so, the extent to which attractions generate visitor flows from surrounding centres of accommodation and the factors which can be identified as affecting their territorial reach are analysed.…”