Congestion in Popular Tourist Areas: A Multi-Attribute Experimental Choice Analysis of Willingness-to-Wait in Amsterdam

Many mature and popular tourist destinations are attracting large volumes of tourist flows. This may lead to congestion phenomena in different parts of tourist cities, especially during peak periods. This paper presents the results of a tourist survey carried out in the city centre of Amsterdam, during the high tourist season (2006), when tourism congestion phenomena were clearly present. In addition to a descriptive and exploratory statistical analysis based on multi-attribute choice analysis, the paper also presents unique findings from a statistical choice experiment on virtual questions regarding the willingness-to-accept tourism congestion, coined willingness-to-wait. Various interesting results are presented and discussed, with a specific focus on the question as to how these results can feed into the policy debate to manage congestion in mature cultural destinations.

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