Holiday taking and income

Abstract

This paper is the first attempt to estimate the determinants of holiday-taking across several countries. To accomplish this a two-stage estimation procedure is employed which enables incongruous income categories to be transformed into a single income variable. It is found that in the mid-1980s there was a substantial similarity in the holiday taking behaviour of Europeans. The large national differences in holiday participation are explained by differences in income and demographic factors. A remarkable regularity in the responsiveness of the probability of holiday taking to marginal changes in income is found.

An analysis of households' appraisal of their budget constraints for potential participation in tourism

“…In fact, Mergoupis and Steuer (2003) conclude that once all financial and socio-demographic structural information has been included in the regressions, there are no significant differences among European countries. With regard to the specific purpose of this paper (that is, an analysis of the determinants of budget constraints on tourism participation), literature on tourism participation has followed the standard strategy in literature on tourism demand, where budget constraints are proxied using the income variable (Alegre & Pou, 2004;Cai, 1998Cai, , 1999Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2005;Fleischer & Seiler, 2002;Hageman, 1981;Hong et al, 1999;Melenberg & Van Soest, 1996;Mergoupis & Steuer, 2003;Nicolau & Má s, 2005a, 2005bVan Soest & Kooreman, 1987). These authors find that income has a positive effect on the likelihood of deciding to go away for a holiday, in accordance with the hypothesis that tourism is a ''normal'' good, and they show that income is one of the main determinants of the decision not to go away on holiday.…”

“…These authors find that income has a positive effect on the likelihood of deciding to go away for a holiday, in accordance with the hypothesis that tourism is a ''normal'' good, and they show that income is one of the main determinants of the decision not to go away on holiday. However, in papers where income elasticity values (Alegre & Pou, 2004;Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2005;Hageman, 1981;Hong et al, 1999;Van Soest & Kooreman, 1987) or marginal effects (Cai, 1998(Cai, , 1999Mergoupis & Steuer, 2003) are reported, they obtain below-the-unit values. 3 In this sense, as financial consumer theory suggests (see, for instance, Deaton, 1992), the financial determinants of household participation in tourism cannot just be reduced to the influence of current income.…”

“…4 Literature on tourism participation has also emphasized the causal relationship of households' socio-demographic characteristics as proxies for either time constraints or preferences. In this respect, Alegre and Pou (2004), Cai (1998Cai ( , 1999, Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria (2005), Hageman (1981), Hong et al (1999), Má s, (2005a, 2005b), Melenberg and Van Soest (1996), Mergoupis and Steuer (2003) and Van Soest and Kooreman (1987) have shown that family size and composition, construed as proxies for time and physical constraints, limit tourism participation. In the same way, authors that include the 'number of earners' variable while controlling for income also obtain a negative relationship, reflecting the difficulties involved in synchronizing families' leisure time.…”

“…Some authors have studied the determinants of the decision whether to travel abroad or not (Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2005;Eymann & Ronning, 1997;Nicolau & Má s, 2005a;Toivonen, 2004) or whether to take a domestic vacation (Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2005), while in other cases the dependent variable does not distinguish between a domestic or foreign holiday (Alegre & Pou, 2004;Cai, 1998Cai, , 1999Fleischer & Seiler, 2002;Hageman, 1981;Mergoupis & Steuer, 2003;Nicolau & Má s, 2005a, 2005b. All these studies are based on data for one single country, while papers by Mergoupis and Steuer (2003) and Toivonen (2004) analyse the propensity to travel, based on data for several European countries. Taking a sample segmentation approach, Hong et al (1999), Fleischer and Seiler (2002) and Toivonen (2004) analyse tourism participation among a particular segment of the population: senior households/individuals.…”

“…In this context, microeconomic tourism demand models analyse the characteristics of individuals or households that might explain the tourism participation decision. Using microdata relating to household participation in tourism, several authors have studied the financial (essentially incomerelated) and socio-demographic determinants of household participation in tourist travel, with information drawn either from national household expenditure surveys (see, for example, Alegre & Pou, 2004;Cai, 1998Cai, , 1999Hageman, 1981;Hong, Kim, & Lee, 1999;Melenberg &Van Soest, 1996 andKooreman, 1987) or specific nationally representative travel surveys (see, for example, Coenen & van Eekeren, 2003;Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2005;Fleischer & Seiler, 2002;Mergoupis & Steuer, 2003;Nicolau & Má s, 2005a, 2005band Toivonen, 2004. This paper differs from previous analyses of tourism participation in two respects.…”