Abstract
Seasonality is a widely recognised and accredited phenomenon known to cause an imbalance in tourism activity throughout the year, prompting tourist destinations, both public and private, to consider how best to plan the use of their resources. One way of mitigating the economic imbalances that seasonality can cause is to find strategies for seasonal adjustment, such as travel programmes aimed at the elderly. This paper analyses the seasonality of tourism activity in some EU countries, and in particular in Spain. Different indicators are used to compare the results and carry out a sensitivity analysis. The study then focuses on tourism programmes for the elderly in Spain to see whether this type of programme helps to alleviate the seasonality of tourism activity. To corroborate this, an econometric model is specified and estimated, which enables the scope of these programmes to be compared.
Highlights
Tourism seasonality is understood as the concentration of flows and tourist activity in a certain period of the year [1]
The results indicate that the seasonality coefficients Gini coefficient (GC), Walsh–Lawler coefficient (WLC) and variation coefficient (VC) provide similar information, and the EC (It should be noted that EC has a different sign in the correlation matrix because its valuation is inverse to the rest of the indices, that is, the value 0 indicates maximum concentration and its maximum value (3.58) indicates equidistribution) and the Oliver coefficient (OC) coefficients provide very similar results
When the VC, GC and WLC coefficients are used as seasonality indices, the results suggest that the seasonality of all types of travellers staying in hotel establishments shows a high inertia and, in addition, the number of travellers using the Imserso programme in periods of low demand and the price of trips financed by Imserso are probabilistically significant
Summary
Tourism seasonality is understood as the concentration of flows and tourist activity in a certain period of the year [1]. References [2,3] define seasonality in tourism activity as a temporary imbalance, in which both supply and demand are involved. It describes the temporary mismatch between supply and demand and the subsequent imbalances between the coming and going of tourists. According to [4], seasonality can be considered as having two dimensions: natural and institutional. Natural seasonality refers to variations caused by natural phenomena, such as the weather. Institutional or cultural seasonality is much more complex and is related to different factors, such as work holidays, school holidays, travel habits, religious holidays, tradition and the existence of sociocultural or sporting events, such as the opera season, music festivals and marathons
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