Differentiation in the Tourism Sector: An Evolutionary Analysis

The debate on the sustainability of mass tourism development strategies for given destinations has focused to a large degree on the advisability of shifting the pattern of specialization towards higher quality. However, little and limited theoretical analysis exists to support this idea. This paper...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTourism economics : the business and finance of tourism and recreation Vol. 19; no. 5; pp. 1107 - 1122
Main Authors García, Dolores, Tugores, María
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.10.2013
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Agency theory
Differential analysis
Equilibrium
Hotel industry
Hotels & motels
Leisure
Quality
Quality of service
Studies
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Tourism
Tourist trade
Travel
saturation
tourism competition
evolutionary model
hotel differentiation
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Summary:The debate on the sustainability of mass tourism development strategies for given destinations has focused to a large degree on the advisability of shifting the pattern of specialization towards higher quality. However, little and limited theoretical analysis exists to support this idea. This paper proposes an evolutionary agent-based model for analysing this topic. Different initial configurations of the distribution of hotel qualities and varied saturation levels in the destination lead to different equilibrium configurations. It is found that high-quality and low-quality segments coexist in most of the simulations. Also, the saturation level of a given destination is crucial in determining the weight of the different quality segments up to a limit or maximum level beyond which a strategy of enhancing quality is no longer effective.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:1354-8166
2044-0375
DOI:10.5367/te.2013.0330