A study of visitors' leisure travel behavior in the northwest territories of Canada

Abstract

As long-distance leisure travel has shifted to being broader and more of an amalgam of different activity types, it has become critical for planners to understand what combinations of activities individuals will most likely participate in during a leisure trip. Accordingly, this study models travelers' participation in any combination of eight leisure trip activities. The analysis utilizes activity participation data from a tourist exit survey collected from the Northwest Territories in Canada. A Multivariate Binary Probit model system, with correlation across every pair of leisure activities, is estimated using a Composite Marginal Likelihood method. The empirical analysis results emphasize that travelers often combine specific sets of leisure activities together during tourism travel. However, which sets of activities get paired together depends greatly on travelers' experience, travel companions, and individual concerns.

Keywords:

• Tourism travel behavior
• combined leisure activity involvement
• prior travel experience
• Composite Marginal Likelihood
• Multivariate Binary Probit