Characteristics of Tourism Industrial Clusters from Spatial Perspectives

Abstract

This is a basic study on tourism industrial cluster, seeking to relate the tourism industry to existing studies on industrial clusters and to identify the characteristics of tourism industrial clusters through exploratory analysis. To understand the locational conditions to the characteristics of tourism industrial clusters conceptually, existing studies about industrial clusters are used. Results reveal that the potential location for a tourism industrial cluster may have the accessibility on tourist attraction, urban environment, and traffic. Tourism industrial cluster identified through exploratory analysis can be classified into three types: tourist attraction-accessed cluster; traffic/leisure-dependent cluster, and; urban environment-utilizing cluster. This classification of tourism industrial clusters can be applied to studies on both “agglomeration economies” and “the types of industrial clusters”. Consequently, tourism industrial clusters could be classified into both “localization economies” and “urbanization economies” based on “agglomeration economies”, and “industrial complex” and “pure agglomeration” based on “the types of industrial cluster”. Therefore, this study found that tourism industrial clusters could be formed in both local and urban areas according to the differences in spatial characteristics among the clusters.