Variations in seasonality in spa centres of Serbia

Abstract

Seasonality of tourist demand imposes a number of issues related to the destination?s carrying capacity and business activities of the individual service providers in tourism. As one indicator of seasonal fluctuation of tourist demand, the Gini index is identified in order to establish monthly concentration of tourists. In this study, the Gini index was calculated for four spa tourism destinations in Serbia (Vrnjacka Banja, Sokobanja, Niska Banja, and Prolom Banja), in order to establish variability in the seasonality. The research took into consideration the period 2010-2019. Research results indicate that Niska Banja Spa has the lowest values of the Gini index, while Vrnjacka Banja Spa and Sokobanja Spa have the highest values, whereby no values are higher that .45 (mostly between .30 and .39). Given that the theoretically lowest value of the Gini index is 0 (smallest seasonal concentration) and the highest is 1 (biggest concentration), the selected spas still do not have particularly high degree of seasonal concentration of tourists. Possibilities for reduction of tourist demand seasonality are pointed out, given its impact on tourism planning and its economic effects.

Detection of the Seasonally Activated Rural Areas

“…The general conclusion is that registered seasonality fluctuation, in the territory of Serbia, is low to moderate, pronounced only in several tourist areas that attract massive tourist movements. This conclusion is confirmed with results obtained in other seasonality research of tourism seasonality in Serbia, regardless of different applied methods [48,52].…”

“…The analysis of the selected spa centers confirmed the assumptions that specialised offers attract a mostly targeted group of tourists in a specific time of the season (health tourism, spa, and wellness) and remain with local character. Other studies highlight the conclusion that spa centers in Serbia still do not have a high degree of seasonal concentration of tourists [52], however, with a noticed prolonged spring-summer season between May and November [100].…”

“…It is focused on balancing income during the year, occupancy rate of the accommodation, employment and seasonal labor market, performance of hospitality firms, balancing of infrastructure utilization, prolongation of the stay, encouraging activation of the off-season, diversity of tourist offerings, destination choice, etc. [41,52]. The seasonality predictability allows policy-makers, businesses, lenders, and investors to anticipate and minimize its impacts [39].…”

“…Only a few previous studies have focused on the seasonality in order to measure and quantify it. Approaches applied were based on traditional methods and statistical data, such as the calculation of the Gini Index, and provided insight into the seasonality of mountain destinations [48] and spa centers [52]. However, all of these suggested seasonality measures were applied on economic activity and some of the tourism elements (arrivals, occupancy rate, GDP, income, etc.).…”