The repertory grid technique was used in this paper to investigate the decision‐making process of travellers. Results showed that both destination physical attributes and the travellers' feelings towards the destination play a significant role in the choice of holiday destinations. Notably, a distinct choice pattern emerged from the analysis, which showed some travellers begin their planning process not based on the destination features but on the availability of air tickets on sale. This observation suggested the potential influence of the “sequence” of receiving or searching for transport and tourism information on the choice of a holiday destination.

This article reports the results of a holiday destination choice model of domestic travelers in Australia. Although destination choices have been studied before, travelers’ behavior when choosing an airline ticket is less well investigated, in particular the effect of the choice of airline ticket and tourism features on each other and on the final destination choice. Multinomial logit (MNL) models were estimated using data from a Stated Preference (SP) choice experiment based on a D-Efficient design. Following the leader-driven primacy phenomenon, the article also tests whether destination choices are influenced by sequentially receiving information about airline tickets and tourism features. Results show that when airline ticket information is presented first, the destination choice behavior could be affected. In this context, the information sequencing effect is clear. However, the influence of tourism features is not as clear on the final choice when travelers are first exposed to tourism features and then airline tickets.