The Application and Test on Distance Decay Theory of Tourism - Innovative Management in Information and Production - page 255

50

16-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
56-65
66+

40

30

20

10

0

Fig. 2 The age distribution of the visitors

It is also observed in Fig. 1 that the line of “mean age” has a positive slope.
The average age of the long-haul visitors is higher than of the short-haul visitors,
with the ranges of 38.4-41 years old and 41.8-44.7 years old, respectively. This
finding reflects that for business visit to Hong Kong, long-haul visitors are to some
extent more mature or experienced than short-haul visitors.
The positive slope of the “mean age” line means that in Hong Kong, elder
visitors are more likely for longer distance business travel. Therefore it is proved
that distance decay effect has impact on the ages of the visitors. The average age
increases when the distance from origin to Hong Kong increases. However, the
distance decay effect cannot be found in gender or marriage status obviously from
the figure.
The detailed categories of age shown in Fig. 2 further examine the age
distributions of the business visitors in Hong Kong. From the figure it is found that
in all source markets the largest proportion of age phase is 36-45, which indicates
that the business visitors in Hong Kong with this range of ages are potentially major
markets. Then the ages of 26-35 and 46-55 year-old business visitors also have
high proportions, followed by the age range of 56-65 years old. This finding will
benefit the marketing as well as strategies planning for both tourism industry and
government.
Besides age distribution, stay duration and per capita expenditure are further
examined. Figure 3 indicates the average nights the visitors stay in Hong Kong for
business trip and their corresponding per capita spending. Comparing the left and
the right sides of the dashed, it is found that long-haul visitors have more per capita
expenditure than short-haul visitors. Also, the figure shows that the stay duration
of long-haul visitors is on average longer than of the short-haul visitors. These
conclusions can be understood considering that for long-haul visitors they have to
spend more time and money for the travel.
From Fig. 3 it can also be found that for business visitors in Hong Kong, there is
a positive correlation between stay duration and per capita spending. The movement
of these two variables is on average in the same direction. Therefore it can be