The Application and Test on Distance Decay Theory of Tourism - Innovative Management in Information and Production - page 257

100

80

HK only
Multi-destination

60

40

20

0

Fig. 5 Itinerary of business visitors (%)

visitors are more likely to take the trip by themselves. In other words, business
visitors prefer without companion in long-haul travel than in short-haul travel.
Itinerary of a visitor is another important factor the market practitioners are
interested in. According to different itinerary of visitors, such as single destination
or multi-destination, the market planners can establish different strategies of
marketing correspondingly. In Fig. 5 the itinerary of business visitors of Hong Kong
is examined and the result is very interesting. In Fig. 5 it is shown that the proportion
of the visitors with Hong Kong as the single destination decreases continuously as
the distance from the source market to Hong Kong increases. On the other hand, the
proportion of the multi-destination visitors increases continuously as the distance
from origin increases. These significant changes prove that the distance decay effect
may have impact on tourists' decision on the itinerary choice of single destination
travel or multi-destination travel.

3 Conclusions

This study attempts to examine the business overnight visitors' profile, trip patterns,
and tourism demand in Hong Kong. The distance decay theory is also combined into
the analysis. In the existing literature, distance decay theory has been widely applied
into a variety of areas such as crime, retail shopping, commuting, and recreation
research. However, the theoretical and empirical studies in the context o tourism
are still rare. This study examines the impact of the distance decay effect on Hong
Kong business overnight visitors from thirteen major source markets empirically.
Another contribution of this study is that it identifies the distance decay curve
with two peaks in the Hong Kong case which is firstly advanced by McKercher
and Lew ( 2003 ). The research findings still confirm that distance decay effect
may have influence on some aspects of business visitors' profiles, such as whether