ABSTRACT
The concept of opportunity sets, originally employed in studies of retailing (Marble & Bowlby, 1968) has been applied to a limited extent in tourism research being confined to consumers only, Woodside, Ronkainen and Reid (1977) and Woodside and Sherrell (1977), in projects on travel marketing and vacation choice, have utilised sets of their own specification and Ulm and Crompton (1987) have made reference to these in modelling consumer destination choice decisions. Goodall et al. (1988) and Stabler (1988) have extended the notion of opportunity sets by constructing a model designed to demonstrate the interrelationships between tourists, the industry and the product. They have argued that these interrelationships need to be identified and understood before the structure of the industry and the impact of tourism can be explained. However, the exposition of the concept has not specified, other than by referring to the types of holiday, for example inclusive tours, the content or magnitude or spatial context of the sets.
