Ruben is a PhD candidate in economics and holds a MSc (2008) in Transport and Supply Chain Management from the VU University Amsterdam. He published in the Journal of Transport Geography (2011) on ‘Travel-time reliability impacts on railway passenger demand: a revealed preference analysis’.
Abstract
In his dissertation Ruben van Loon focused on the themes of tourism destination choice, tourism trip analysis, the economic valuation of cultural heritage, and the location dynamics of stores in relation to cultural heritage in the Netherlands. The main research question was: What is the contribution of cultural heritage to the location dynamics of stores in the Netherlands? The results show that neighbourhoods with a rich cultural heritage, in the form of protected cityscape or national monuments within their boundaries, have more stores, have a more positive change in the number of stores, have less vacancy, and have a lower growth in vacancy rates. In particular, the change in the number of clothing/fashion stores is positively related to the presence of protected cityscape in a neighbourhood. Storeowners or retail entrepreneurs apparently have a preference for cultural heritage richer locations. Population size and growth have in general a significantly positive relationship to the number of shops, and the change in the number of shops in a neighbourhood. In short, this dissertation has four important highlights: It determines and estimate vacation choice behaviour in relation to income and other household characteristics; It substantiates the importance of cultural heritage for destination choice for overnight and day trips to urban and rural destinations; It emphasizes the relationship between self-stated travel motives and expenditures on tourist activities, such as visits to museums; It shows the importance of cultural heritage for store dynamics.
Please click here to read Ruben van Loon’s PhD thesis.