Measuring Seasonality in Central Europe's Tourism - how and for what?

Abstract

Based on the intensity or quality of tourism, the concept of ‘seasonality’ describes the unevenness or fluctuation during the course of a year, with the ‘season’ including (at least one) peak period. Such seasonal fluctuations in Europe, which are mostly influenced by seasonal climate changes, are quite common. For the tourism industry, this factor is very important because of utilisation of tourism infrastructure and effects on a region’s economy and employment. Nevertheless, the characteristics and measures of tourism seasonality, compared over different regions, are not well known; problem analysis and a search for solutions in the competition of tourist regions are coming more into use, but so far only on a regional level. This investigation is based on dates from arrivals and overnight stays in the 142 “Tourism Areas” of Germany and the 36 NUTS-III regions of Austria. It includes first, tourism seasonality based on various indicators and then with the help of a Cluster Analysis arranges them by region to various types of seasonality. The results only partially match the expected tourism types (e.g. city tourism) based on regional (tourism) characteristics. This gives an approach for a study, which classifies an interregional comparison of tourism areas and finds methods for solving related problems over a wider regional context.