Towards Sustainable Tourism Transport: An Analysis of Coach Tourism in New Zealand

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Abstract
This paper originates from a concern about the potential obstacles for sustainable development associated with spatial and temporal dimensions of coach tourism in New Zealand. For this reason, the travel patterns of coach tours in New Zealand were analysed in terms of their geographical and seasonal dispersion, transport usage and energy consumption, and tourists' travel costs which, in combination with the spatial analysis, allowed some indication of regional economic benefits. To account for potential differences between different cultures of origin, coach tourists were segmented into Australian, European, North American and Asian tourists. While coach tourism by nature focuses on tourist icons, it appeared that Asian and North American tours were concentrated particularly in primary hubs and were characterized by a higher mobility, resulting in considerable energy demand compared with Australian and European tours. The latter performed better on the indicators of regional dispersion – which is seen as beneficial for regional development – and transport behaviour, but spent less per trip and, in the case of European coach tours, showed more seasonal travel patterns. This research demonstrates that it is useful to segment coach tours by different cultures of origin when assessing indicators for tourist transport sustainability.