Domestic tourism destinations are an important part of holiday making in most countries, and even in a small country as the Netherlands contains almost 50 per cent of the trips made (2008, NBTC-NIPO). In this paper we use modern discrete choice modelling methods to investigate the underlying factors, which are determinative for making a vacation destination choice, while focusing on the role of cultural heritage. Our model allows for unobserved amenities of the destinations and takes into account the heterogeneity of preferences among the tourists. Cultural heritage is indicated by the number of listed monuments, the number of museums and the total area of protected city- or townscape in the tourist destination area. We also take into account congestion effects.