Tourists’ Trip Adaptation Subjected to Advance Information on Impending Cyclone Affecting their Destination

Investigating the arrival of tourists subject to the forecast of an impending cyclone can help to understand the possible evacuation demand. This study focused on tourists’ decisions to either cancel, reduce stay duration, or continue entire stay duration of their upcoming trip after receiving information about an impending cyclone expected to affect their destination. The objective is to decipher the arrival of tourists and the potential evacuation demand. A stated preference survey, designed using the scenario variables 1) cyclone intensity, 2) spendable stay duration, and 3) days left to initiate the outward journey from home was conducted at Puri, the cyclone-susceptible tourist location in Odisha, India. Multinomial logit and nested logit models are developed. The tourists’ propensity to continue entire stay duration is significantly influenced by lower average age, male dominance, low income, and education of the group head. Tourists’ decisions are sensitive to the intensity of the impending cyclones and the sunk costs involved in the travel plan. Their inclination to reduce stay duration is observed to be predominant when they can spend at least two-thirds of their planned stay duration. Assessment of various possible evacuation demand levels and other evacuation pre-planning inputs are derived by investigating the impact of influential variables.