Seasonality and the contribution of markets: Comparing methods

Abstract

This paper examines alternative methods of decomposing the seasonality of tourism by market. We undertake an analysis that compares the well-known techniques of Lerman and Yitzhaki (1985) and of Shorrocks (1982), and which also uses the Shapley value (1953) in a novel manner. The lack of a single approach makes it important to validate the results using the three different approaches to ensure that the current research provides solid tools for the public and private sectors to apply efficient promotion policies, differentiating products and prices, thus mitigating the effects of seasonality. An application is then undertaken for the case of Catalonia and its four provinces, over the period 2006–2017. Some interesting results emerge: one, the above three techniques provide similar results, thus increasing the robustness of the findings (the method of Lerman and Yitzhaki (1985) being especially attractive given its formulation); two, the analysis for this tourist region of Span suggests that market strategies should be focused on—although in different ways—the domestic market, the most important international markets (typically, the French and British), and on those markets which make negative marginal contributions to seasonality (for example, the Italian).