Navigating the corn maze: Customizing travel cost models to value market segments in heterogeneous industries. Issue 4 (June 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Van Sandt, Anders; Thilmany McFadden, Dawn
• Other Names: Saayman Andrea guest-editor.; Seetanah Boopen guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Tourism economics. Volume 28:Issue 4(2022)
• Page Start: 899
• Page End: 919
• Publication Date: 2022-06
• Subjects: agritourism -- consumer surplus -- demand -- multi-destination -- rural tourism -- travel cost model; Tourism -- Periodicals; 338.4791
• DOI: 10.1177/1354816620976968
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-8166

Abstract

Agritourism is an example of a growing and important industry to rural communities in the United States seeking to leverage interest in their natural resource, agricultural, and other heritage assets. We use survey data and a flexible travel cost model to estimate the part-worth consumer surplus (CS) values of Western US agritourism trips for different regions, activities, and traveler types. Given the rural nature of agritourism may require interested travelers to come from long distances, we also pay particular attention to and compare travelers' marginal and cumulative travel costs to evaluate the impact on CS estimates. Results indicate that trip and traveler heterogeneity, if unaccounted for, may lead to misinformed policy and management decisions.