Towards an understanding of international city break travel

This paper explores city break tourism and, in particular, the distinctive characteristics of this form of travel. The city break is examined and compared with other types of trips. The research follows a sequential mixed methods approach involving both a visitor survey and in-depth interviews. The findings show the international city break trip to have a number of distinctive characteristics. These are summarised into five main areas (5 Ds) - duration, distance, date flexibility, discretionary nature and destination travel party. These distinguishing features provide a useful insight into one of the most important yet least examined travel segments in tourism research.