GPS-based measurement of geographic spillovers in tourism – example of Polish districts

ABSTRACT

The agglomeration phenomenon in tourism often spreads beyond the borders of territorial units what is referred to as geographic spillovers. However, the measurement of spatial concentration of tourism demand and economic activity is usually based on statistics collected within regional administrative boundaries and omits the spatial interdependency between neighboring regions. Recognition of such spatial interdependency in the standard procedure to define neighborhood relies on the distance between geometric means (centroids) of territorial units which, however, rarely reflects real ‘centers’ of tourism agglomerations and leads to errors and biased results. Hence, we propose to modify the measures of the neighborhood with the use of GPS coordinates of tourism firms and attractions in order to designate their regional central tendencies and thus to correct (shift in space) localization of centroids of territorial units. We test the usefulness of the new approach to obtain a more precise measurement of spatial concentration when tourism spills over beyond the boundaries of territorial units using the example of Polish districts. We employ the exploratory spatial data analysis (spatial statistics) and spatial regression models – to assess the difference between using traditional centroids and GPS coordinates in defining neighborhood and determining spillover effects in regional analysis. Furthermore we apply the new method into the model of tourism potential in order to identify spillover effects in Polish regions. We use the data collected by Central Statistical Office (tourists staying overnight in 379 districts in 2014) and by Polish Tourist Organization (14,390 GPS coordinates of individual entities: tourism firms and attractions). The neighborhood determined with the use of GPS coordinates to measure the distance between centers of tourism agglomerations eliminates the dependence of the results on the administrative boundaries – but only to some degree. The challenge is to identify tourism agglomeration phenomenon as such, based on the mobility of tourists in space.

摘要

旅游集聚现象的扩散经常超出地域单元的边界, 这就是所谓的“地理溢出”。但是, 旅游需求与经济活动空间集中的测量经常基于区域行政边界范围内收集的数据, 因而这种方法忽略邻近区域间的空间相关性。在界定邻近区域的常规做法中识别这种空间相关性依靠地域单元几何中心的距离, 因此这种方法很少反映旅游集聚的真实中心而造成误差和有偏的结果。为了定位地区中心的趋势进而矫正地域单元中心的位置, 我们用旅游企业与景区GPS坐标修改了近邻地区的测量指标。我们以波兰街区为例检验了这种新方法的效果, 结果获得了一个更为准确的旅游溢出地域边界时的空间中心度测量值。我们用探索性空间数据分析 (空间统计学) 和空间回归模型评估了地区分析中在界定邻近地区和确定溢出效果时传统几何中心与GPD坐标的差别。另外, 我们把这种新方法运用到旅游潜力模型中识别波兰地区旅游溢出效应。我们使用了中央统计局 (2014年有379个街区有旅游者过夜) 和波兰旅游局 (有14390个旅游企业与景区实体的GPS坐标) 的数据, 结果用GPS坐标测定旅游集聚中心距离确定的邻近地区在某种程度上消除了对行政边界的依赖性。未来的挑战是根据旅游者在空间的移动性识别旅游集聚现象。

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism agglomeration
• geographic spillovers
• GPS coordinates
• LISA
• spatial regression and potential models
• Polish districts

关键词:

• 旅游集聚
• 地理溢出
• 全球定位系统坐标
• 空间联系的局部指标
• 空间自相关与潜在模型
• 波兰街区

Acknowledgements

The Author is very grateful to prof. Szymon Truskolaski from Poznan University of Economics and Business for his strong support and all inspiring suggestions to this article. The author also would like to thank to the Reviewers of this Journal for detailed assessment of the manuscript and very useful comments enhancing its quality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

National Science Centre, Poland [grant number 2014/13/D/HS4/01715].

Notes on contributors

Justyna Majewska

Justyna Majewska is a Doctor of Economic Sciences and assistant professor in the Department of International Economics at Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. She received her PhD degree in 2009 from Poznań University of Economics, Department of Tourism. She has been a member of the Tourist Research Center since 2012. Her research interests focus on spatial aspects of tourism development, tourism policy and determinants of tourism destinations development.