Original scientific paper

CONTRIBUTION TO E-TOURISM DEMAND MODELLING

Tea Baldigara ; Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Ana Štambuk ; Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Maja Mamula ; Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

The tourism sector has experienced several significant changes over the past decades due to the strong development of the information and communication technologies (ICT). The technological revolution experienced through the development of the Internet has changed dramatically the market conditions for tourism organizations. ICTs evolve rapidly providing new tools for tourism development and rerouting. As known, tourism is defined and characterized by the demand side, it is therefore important to detect and define the various factors that determine it. Tourism demand modeling and forecasting have been an issue under examination in many researches. A large number of econometrics studies used, both time series and econometric approaches to model and forecast tourism demand and its various determinants. As known, tourism demand can be defined as a set of goods and services that people acquire to accomplish their journeys, expressed in term of quantity. Among different factors that influence tourism demand income, prices, substitute pries, and other variable are mentioned as determining measures or explanatory variables that affect the quantity of goods or services purchased. On the other side of the tourism demand function, as the dependent variable, most commonly the number of tourists or the number of tourists overnights are investigated. The paper presents the authors endeavor to express a theoretical e − tourism demand model, as a mathematical function that indicates the presence of a relationship between the dependent variable, expressed by the number of tourists’ overnight stays and a number of commonly used explanatory variables. Due to the growing importance of the information and communication technology and its great influence on the tourism sector, the authors research the possibilities of adding some additional supplementary independent variables i.e. the number of internet users, the number of overnights stays that were booked online or the number of online reservations to stress and represent the significant role play by the information and communication technology in determining the e-tourism demand.

Keywords

Information and communication technology (ICT); e-tourism demand; econometrics modeling; mathematical model; dependent variable; explanatory variables

Hrčak ID:

113094

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/113094

Publication date:

20.12.2013.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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