The structures and flows of a large tourist itinerancy network

Abstract

This paper undertakes a detailed network analysis (NA) of the structures and flows of a large tourist itinerancy network emerging in six Southeast Asian countries, developed by aggregating 1668 tour itineraries accessed from 149 tour marketing websites. The analysis includes the examination of the network and of seven extracted subnetworks (modules). It identifies various macro-patterns in the network influenced by scale freeness, preferential attachment, and growth. It proposes that a small number of nodes and edges form supercores. These dynamical elements influence the network's emergence, which is occurring without central coordination. A network backbone formed by these supercores emphasizes the flows in the network. The implications are visualized by several conceptual models of tourist and related resource and revenue flows. It identifies that a basin and sink topology, which drains flows from the periphery towards a network backbone sink, is consistent with preferential attachment processes in the network. This paper assists in turning NA in tourism from textile metaphors towards research centred upon empirical relational data. In this case, it exposes a network emerging from the inherent physical connectedness of tourism.