MODELING SEQUENTIAL TOURIST FLOWS: WHERE IS THE NEXT DESTINATION?

•We partitioned the process of subsequent destination choice into three stages.•We applied a nested logit model to study tourists’ choice of subsequent destination.•We found the significant impact of the spatial configuration factor.

This paper analyzes the subsequent decisions of tourists with respect to sequential destinations: why they visit a given destination after visiting a previous one and where they are most likely to go. Using a dataset from an on-site tourist survey in Nanjing, China, we study this decision process by partitioning it into three stages, and a nested logit model is used to estimate the determinants in each stage. Apart from the individual characteristics of tourists and destination attributes, we find that the spatial configuration of destinations (spatial structure) also tends to influence tourists’ destination choice. Finally, a series of simulations are carried out to understand the competition/substitution patterns between subsequent destinations.