Seasonality of Overseas Tourism Demand in Scotland: A Regional Analysis

Seasonal concentration of tourism demand: Decomposition analysis and marketing implications

“…Further exemplary reviews have outlined the main causes and consequences, debates and issues in seasonality research (Baum & Lundtorp, 2001;Boffa & Succurro, 2012;Butler & Mao, 1997;Cannas, 2012;Espinet, Fluvia, & Rigall-I-Torrent, 2012;Getz & Nilsson, 2004;Jang, 2004;Kulendran & Wong, 2005). Coshall et al (2015) categorized studies on seasonality according to whether they investigated the types and causes of seasonality, their impacts and policy implications, or the range of public and private sector interventions that have been made in attempting to mitigate seasonality. Whilst the existing literature most often focuses on the causes of seasonality, such as climactic factors, availability of tourism products, accessibility and marketing mix, Coshall et al (2015) sought to shift the focus onto the spatial effects of seasonality.…”

“…Seasonal fluctuations are pervasive in the tourism system due to climactic and socio-structural cycles of both destinations and markets. Thus, the factors that lead to seasonality are a seemingly intractable and perennial management issue, identified recently as "one of the most protracted problems facing managers in the tourism sector" (Coshall, Charlesworth, & Page, 2015, p.1604. Research on seasonality has attempted to model seasonal variations, has looked at how destinations adjust to and manage seasonality, and has investigated the policy and marketing implications of seasonality, as well as the strategies and measures used to overcome seasonality, such as extending the season.…”

“…Koenig-Lewis and Bischoff complemented the Gini index with other techniques, such as the coefficient of variation, seasonal ratio, seasonal plot, coefficient of variability, seasonal factors, amplitude ratio, peak season's share, amplitude ratio and similarity index. Coshall et al (2015) conducted a regional analysis of the seasonality of international tourism demand in the Scottish regions using the Gini index and the amplitude ratio, where international tourists were classified by travel motivation, using quarterly data. However, in the present study it has been possible to work with monthly data (by the data availability), leading to a more fine-grained analysis.…”

Visitor attractions and events: Responding to seasonality

“…We argue that several key issues affect this response, primarily the existence of local markets, ownership, attraction type and location act as key arbiters of how visitor attractions respond to seasonality of demand, which is framed in the conceptual framework outlined in Figure 1 In terms of the latter, that is, spatial responses to seasonality, prevailing public policy in Scotland emphasises a core-periphery framework, the core comprising the major central lowland belt and a number of key cities where much of the off-peak tourism marketing focuses (VisitScotland 2007a b;, while the periphery encompasses a much larger proportion of the country including the Highlands and Islands. Whilst recent research modelling the geography of seasonality among international demand has challenged these simplistic notions (Coshall, Charlesworth and Page 2014), the more subtle nuances and responses of businesses to these spatial patterns of seasonality have been neglected. Such disregard is largely a function of the complexity of modelling seasonality and the availability of data to perform quantitative econometric assessments.…”

Employment, Capital and Seasonality in Selected Mediterranean Countries

“…After the review of scientifi c literature (Butler, 1994;Butler, 2001;Koenig-Lewis, Bischoff, 2010;Baum, Lundtorp, 2011;Cisneros-Martínez, Fernández-Morales, 2015;Coshall et al, 2015) in the fi eld of tourism it can be concluded that the phenomenon of seasonality, a subject that attracts attention of scientists and experts in the fi eld of tourism for many years, is recognized as one of the key features of tourism activities. From all available defi nitions of seasonality, in the scientifi c literature the most accepted and cited one is Butler's, which defi ned seasonality as a temporal imbalance in the phenomenon of tourism, which may be expressed in terms of dimensions of such elements as numbers of visitors, expenditure of visitors, traffi c on highways and other forms of transportation, employment and admissions to attractions (Butler, 1994).…”