The Relevance of Visitors’ Transport Choices at the Destination for Tourism Planning and Development: A Case Study in Madeira

Understanding visitors’ on-site mobility is critical for sustainable tourism in island contexts, as environmentally friendly travel can reduce externalities and enhance destination attractiveness. Policy design requires analysis of transport choices and their determinants. This study analyzes six airport-intercept survey waves in Madeira (n = 969; 2012–2014, 2017–2019) and models the Share of Sustainable Mobility Choices (SSMC)—the fraction of attraction-bound visits made by walking, cycling or public transport (PT)—using beta regression, with boundary handling and fractional Generalized Linear Model (GLM) robustness checks. Results show SSMC declined from 60.3% (2014) to 42.2% (2018) and 40.1% (2019), with year effects confirming reduced sustainable mobility choices relative to 2012–2014. Segment differences reveal socio-demographic heterogeneity among travellers. Policy implications include integrated tourist PT passses, express PT corridors, first/last-mile shuttles with multilingual information. The study provides multi-year, destination-specific evidence and a bounded-fractional modelling approach to support mobility planning in constrained island territories.