Tourism destinations compete with each other to attract visitors. Although international tourism has received a lot of attention, domestic tourism remains the mainstay for many destinations. To inform the basis on which destinations compete, an understanding of the determinants of destination choices is required. In this paper, the discrete choice modelling method is applied to investigate the determining factors underlying the short-break holiday destination choices of prospective tourists from Melbourne, Australia. The results from an estimated nested logit model indicate the relative importance of a number of destination and trip attributes and respondent characteristics. The model results are used to simulate the effects on destinations' market shares resulting from various changes in attributes and tourist characteristics.

This paper reports on an empirical discrete choice model of the factors influencing a hypothetical athlete’s deliberations around using prohibited performance enhancing substances (doping) developed from a sample of 259 elite Australian athletes (76% Australian, Worlds or Olympic). Kim was constructed as a gender neutral athlete at the same level and stage of career as the respondent. The results indicate athletes felt Kim would be more at risk of considering doping if convinced by a coach or senior athlete of disproportionate immediate gains to performance with little or no consequences (e.g., low risk of prosecution). Conversely, athletes indicated Kim was felt to be less inclined to consider doping if doping would be fatal, to achieve or maintain performance, large fines ($150,000) or no financial gain. The choice model also indicates elite athletes’ projections about doping considerations were rational in character. The implications for managing the role of drugs in sport suggest antidoping could be improved with precisely timed testing, changing incentive structures within sport, concealing test accuracy and publicly humiliating athletes caught doping.

In this article, the findings of a choice modelling study of prospective tourists from the UK are reported. The study is focused on the relative importance of the natural environment on the choices made by prospective UK tourists regarding their overseas holiday destination. The study data are used to analyse the impacts on destination choices of changes in a range of features that describe the holiday locations included in the study. The willingness to pay for changes in the condition of the natural environment – and other destination features – is estimated. The study findings are relevant to the development of the competitive strategy of the nature-based holiday destination of Tropical North Queensland.