TRAVEL HORIZON - A VALUABLE ANALYSIS TOOL

This paper tests the usefulness of Schmidhauser's (1976/1977) travel h orizon concept in analysing travel behavior and accumulated travel exp erience. Based on a pilot study of New Zealand residents it shows that the concept appears valid, as the travel horizon of the respondents h ad expanded as proposed by Schmidhauser, However it is here argued tha t the concept of travel horizons needs to be modified in order to refl ect long-term travel patterns and, therefore, the concept of destinati on zone horizons is suggested, which recognizes that an individual can ascend as well as descend on the horizon ladder. Destination zone hor izons can be used by destinations' marketing organizations in segmenti ng their market for a greater effectiveness of their marketing efforts . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. AII rights reserved.