Modelling the effect of weather on tourism: does it vary across seasons?

Abstract

Weather conditions are important determinants of tourism demand. After reviewing the main contributions of previous research on the role of climatic variables in tourism demand functions, we explore different modelling alternatives to introduce temperature and rainfall in a gravity model. The dataset used comprises interregional tourism flows by Spanish residents from 2011 to 2015. We first estimate a benchmark model with both temperature and rainfall at the destination expressed in levels, and then consider some extensions to this model. In particular, special attention is paid to analyzing whether the sensitivity that tourists may have to weather factors can change across seasons. Other modelling issues examined include the relationship between climatic variables at the destination and at home, the influence of weather in previous periods (lagged values of temperature and rain), the variability of the weather variables (captured by the standard deviation of these variables), or whether the effect of temperature varies with the climatic characteristics of the region. Our empirical results confirm that spring and summer tourism in Spain is more sensitive to weather conditions, that the number of domestic overnight stays in Spain is strongly influenced by changes in the difference in temperature between tourists’ home and destination regions, that the estimated parameters of lagged weather variables are higher than those corresponding to the travelling months, that temperature variability in the destination region reduces tourism demand, and that the effect of temperature on destination choice for residents in moderate-climate regions is lower than for residents in other types of regions.

摘要

天气状况是旅游需求的重要决定因素。本文在回顾了以往关于气候变量在旅游需求函数中的作用的研究成果后, 我们探索了在重力模型中引入温度和降雨的不同建模方案。使用的数据集包括2011年至2015年西班牙居民的跨地区旅游流量。我们首先用水平表示的目的地温度和降雨量来估计基准模型, 然后考虑对该模型的一些扩展。特别要注意的是, 游客对天气因素的敏感性是否会随着季节的变化而变化。研究涉及的其他建模问题包括目的地与客源地气候变量之间的关系,天气的影响在上一时期(以温度和降雨作为滞后值),天气变量的变异性(这些变量的标准差),或者温度随地区气候特征而变化的效应。实证结果证实, 西班牙春季和夏季旅游对天气状况更为敏感,国内在西班牙过夜游客量受游客客源地和目的地温差的显著影响,天气滞后变量的估计参数高于相应旅行月份的同期值,目的地地区温度变化减少了旅游需求,温度对中等气候地区居民目的地选择的影响小于其他气候类型地区居民。

Keywords:

• Domestic tourism flows
• gravity model
• weather
• Spanish regions
• seasons
• climatic variables

关键词:

• 国内旅游流
• 重力模型
• 天气
• 西班牙地区
• 季节
• 气候变量

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

César Muñoz

César Muñoz is an associate professor at the National Distance Education University (Spain). His research area focuses on transport and tourism economics. He's especially interested in exploring the determinants of destination choice to explain competitive position in the Spanish tourism industry.

Antonio Álvarez

Antonio Álvarez is a full professor of Economics at the University of Oviedo (Spain). His research has focused on applied production analysis, and in particular on the field of efficiency and productivity measurement. He is associate editor of the Journal of Productivity Analysis.

José F. Baños

José F. Baños is an associate professor of Economics at the University of Oviedo (Spain). His main areas of research are the analysis of efficiency and productivity, and transport and tourism economics. He is currently the director of the Tourist Information System of Asturias. He has published several articles in scientific journals, including, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Journal of Travel Research, Transportation or Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.