Tourists make two fundamental decisions when they travel: where to go (destination) and what to do (experience/activity). Whereas the modeling of destination choice behavior has a substantial research history, there has been little research that has sought to model and explain the choice behavior of tourists when deciding what type of vacation experience they wish to undertake. To address this gap, this study investigates how experience types are related with regard to actual past tourism consumption and preferred future experience choice. In order to investigate these relationships, the authors employed latent class modeling on survey data from a sample of respondents who had reported their recent and intended future vacation travel choices and preferences. Despite the acknowledged importance of variety seeking in a tourism choice context, the study found strong evidence for the stability of preferred experiences. In addition, it found insightful patterns of association between experience types.
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