Out of the city – but how and where? A mode-destination choice model for urban–rural tourism trips in Austria

Rural tourism is dominated by car travel. To attract tourists and facilitate a modal shift, a greater understanding is needed on the factors driving tourist decisions. This paper examines destination and transport mode choices as a combined choice in the context of urban–rural tourism in Austria. To do this, this article explores two different model structures, ultimately using a multinomial logit model, which is rooted in the random utility theory. The analysed data are based on a large tourism survey, with additional trip and destination characteristics annotated later on to allow for the anticipated focus on supply-side factors. The results show that (1) destination and transport mode choices are intertwined decisions, (2) car and public transport (PT) travellers perceive travel time and distance differently, (3) a high-quality web presence is the strongest destination attractor, (4) walkability facilitates both destination and public transport attractiveness, and (5) daily and tourist mobility are connected through underlying mobility cultures. These results have various policy and planning implications, especially for destination attempting to transition towards more sustainable tourism futures by means of new transport or tourism offers or social marketing measures targeting both tourists with their personal values and practices as well as tourism-related institutions.