Determinants of Nature Trip Expenditures in Southern Finland – Implications for Nature Tourism Development

Abstract

As in many industrialized countries, Finnish policy makers see nature tourism as a source of rural economic development. This study explores the factors that influence traveller expenditures on nature trips. While focusing primarily on nature tourism in southern Finland, it also draws comparisons with northern Finland, where nature tourism is well established. On the basis of accommodation and activity expense data, nature trips were segmented in order to identify those destination attributes that promote high expenditures. In addition, an analysis was made of the role of different landownership categories in providing recreation services that support nature tourism. Basic data was provided by a population survey designed to inventory national outdoor recreation demand and supply. Trip‐related expenditures were found to be especially low on trips to a family‐owned summer cottage, such trips being typical in nature tourism in southern Finland. For trips to destinations other than a vacation home, higher expenditures tended to be associated with travellers' higher income and with middle age. Some destination area characteristics, such as availability of downhill skiing slopes and camping sites increased the probability that the trip would be a high‐expenditure trip. Other trip characteristics that increased tourists' expenditures and thus economic impacts of nature tourism were related to first‐time visit, longer distance from residence to destination and longer stay at the destination. The implications of these findings on nature tourism development in Finland are discussed.

Keywords:

• Travel expenditure
• segmenting trips
• nature trip
• site characteristic
• trip characteristic

Notes

1. In several site choice studies based either on a hypothetical choice experiment or on an actual choice between sites, attribute characteristics served as an explanatory variable (e.g. Karou et al., 1995; Boxall et al., 1996; Hanley et al., 2001). However, in these studies the explained variable has not been the expenditures but the choice between sites. Also in travel cost studies the focus is not on the expenditures but on the demand for visits to particular sites. In those studies the number of visits to a site has been explained by the price of the trip, i.e. by travel costs and site characteristics (e.g. Creel & Loomis, 1990).