Does Tourism Consumption Behaviour Mirror Differences in Living Standards?

Based on the theoretical foundation of well-being measurement, the study explores differences in living standards by analysing the distribution of tourism expenditure. A mixture of regression models is used to explore the heterogeneity in tourism consumption by identifying groups of families with similar tourism consumption behaviour as a function of certain socio-demographic and economic factors. The empirical analysis, performed on Italian expenditure data, suggests that there are three different patterns of consumption behaviour conditional to the socio-demographic and economic covariates in the tourism market and that differences in tourism consumption between groups of households mirror inequalities in living standards.