Economics of Travel Behavior and their Implications on Energy

Travelers are among the largest consumers of energy and their impacts on global environment are increasing. There are different types of travelers and each of these exhibit different behaviors in terms of energy consumption. The main categories of travelers include; business travelers, leisure travelers and travelers to friends and relatives (Kelly and Williams, 2007). Different types of travelers make different choices concerning mode of transportation, accommodation and attraction.

Though travelers consume energy in all components of their travel (transportation and destination components) the back of the energy is consumed during transportation. As much as 90 percent of travelers’ energy consumption is attributed to the transportation component (Kelly and Williams, 2007). Travelers usually have choices over the three mode of transportation; land, air and water. Out of the three modes of transport, air transportation is the largest consumer of energy. Airplanes require more energy than other means of transport (rail, cruise or vehicles) to travel. During travel energy is also utilized in accommodation and attraction.

Destination energy is consumed during activities such as meal preparation, lighting, entertainment, sight seeing, conferences among many others. When analyzing the three types of tourist, business tourists are likely to travel more often than leisure or family travelers and therefore form the largest energy users. Most business travelers are also less cost conscious and therefore are likely to travel using airplanes since they are convenient, also making them large energy users. Most leisure travelers are also likely to use air transportation at some point during their travel and therefore form back of the energy using travelers. Though these travelers do not travel as regularly as business travelers, they consume a lot of energy during their travel.

References

Kelly J & Williams P. (2007). Modeling Tourism Destination Energy Consumption and Green House Gas Emission. Journal of Sustainable Tourism; 15 (1)

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