An annual time use model for vacation travel

Abstract

Vacation travel constitutes about 25% of all long-distance travel, and about 80% of this vacation travel is undertaken using the automobile. This paper contributes to the vacation travel literature by examining how households decide what vacation travel activities to participate in on an annual basis, and to what extent, given the total annual vacation travel time that is available at their disposal. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive modelling exercise in the literature to undertake such a vacation travel time-use analysis to examine purpose-specific time investments. A mixed multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model structure that is consistent with the notion of “optimal arousal” in vacation type time-use decisions is used in the analysis. The data used is drawn from the 1995 American Travel Survey (ATS). The empirical results show that most households participate in different types of vacation travel over the course of a year, and they spend significantly different amounts of time on each type of vacation travel. The model developed here can be used to predict the changes in vacation travel timeuse patterns due to the changes in demographic, economic, and residence characteristics over time. Such predictions, in turn, can be used to examine the changing vacation travel needs of households, so that appropriate service and transportation facilities may be planned.