A Multivariate Nonlinear Analysis of Tourism Expenditures

Independence among different tourism expenditure categories is the most convenient hypothesis for modeling decision–making processes. Nevertheless, the best-suited framework would require dependence among expenditures in order to face individual budget and ordered choices. To this end we provide a new multivariate copula-based logit model with explanatory variables. We applied our tools to the expenditures of the foreign tourists visiting South–Tyrol (Northern Italy), and we underlined the need to go beyond usual independence assumption in order to get more realistic results. The obtained findings are useful for policy makers, marketing experts, and local government in order to know how visitors allocate their travel budget; moreover, they can been exploited to improve the touristic supply by means of ad–hoc promotions, advertising, touristic packages, and