Does climate drive tourism seasonality in cultural destinations? A comparative study

ABSTRACT

Climate is considered to be an important driver of tourism seasonality in climate-dependent destinations. However, what role climate plays in the seasonality of cultural destinations remains unclear. Through the matching of seasonal factors and tourism climate index, this paper found that cultural destination has a weak seasonality and climate still regulates recurrent fluctuations in tourism demand. However, unlike climate-dependent destinations, climate is no longer the dominant factor in cultural destinations. The findings indicate that strategies for mitigating seasonality should be different for climatic and cultural destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Seasonality
• cultural tourism
• tourism climate index
• X-12-ARIMA
• Beijing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Beijing: https://whlyj.beijing.gov.cn/cycj/tjxx/lstjxx/2014/index.htm

Sanya: https://lwt.hainan.gov.cn/xxgk_55333/lytj/2019data/.