Yield-relevant tourist decision making: technical background report

Abstract

This report presents findings from Objective 2 of the FRST funded research programme titled: Enhancing the Spatial Dimensions of Tourism Yield. The overall aim of the programme is to examine tourism yield from a demand side perspective on the hypothesis that it is possible to identify which tourists (and their itineraries) generate different yield outcomes. A further aim is for this knowledge to enable product, policy and marketing interventions with the potential to grow yield per visitor. The concept of ‘yield’ has been discussed in detail in the first programme report based on Objective 1 of the overall programme (see Becken et al., 2008). In brief, in the present report ‘yield’ refers both to financial and economic measures of yield and to measures of sustainable yield. ‘Sustainable yield’ refers to measures of environmental returns from tourism (e.g., CO2 emissions; energy use) and social returns (e.g., the degree of regional dispersal of tourists in New Zealand). All three of these aspects of yield are examined in terms of their spatial expression. That is, each measure of yield is in part determined by where (and when), within New Zealand, these components of yield arise. Put simply, the different itineraries tourists exhibit in New Zealand are associated with different yield outcomes. This report, in summary, focuses on insights about the tourist decision making process that can inform stakeholder activity while at the same time reporting progress on the overall programme goals.