An Investigation of Sustainable Self-Drive Tourism in Florida.

Self-drive tourism is popular in Florida and an under-researched academic area. Given electric vehicle sales grew significantly in the last few years, this paper investigated how electric cars could impact drive tourism in Florida. For self-drive tourists the quality of facilities and destinations drive satisfaction. Yet, supply side limitations can hinder an innovation’s adoption and diffusion. Investigating the availability of electric rental vehicles and necessary charging times while travelling between tourism destinations in Florida showed a limited availability of electric cars through established car rental companies. Turo, an example of a person-to-person car sharing service, had several electric cars on offer. Yet, charging facilities for electric vehicle renters and charging times between tourism destinations seem to be within acceptable thresholds. This limited supply of EVs could slow down the EV adoption for self-drive tourism. Given the infancy of the electric vehicle market, factors driving electric vehicle self-drive tourism will change significantly over time and tourist behaviour related to this new drive trend seems an interesting and growing research avenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]