ISSN 1108-8931

INTERNATIONAL ECOTOURISM MONTHLY

Year 5-Issue 53, Oct 2003

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In this issue: Seasonality: Tourism Highs and Lows - what causes them and what if anything should be done?
by Stella Bell*

Seasonality is the tendency for demand to be concentrated at specific times of the year. Most businesses experience these fluctuations of demand, but for industries where the product is a service, like the tourism industry, the product cannot be stored. This means that in the high season resources are stretched to their limits, whilst during the low season hardly used, if at all. Because of this, in the tourism industry seasonality has come to be viewed as a problem.

It is said that the fluctuations become more extreme the further you move from the equator as climatic fluctuations are much more extreme at high latitudes - (although temperature is a far more complex phenomenon), but the importance of climate in defining the length of the tourist season, is often overstated, as there are many other cultural (or institutional) factors which influence season length.
These include religious or national festivals; school and industrial holidays; sporting season (for example with skiing - which clearly, is closely linked to the weather); the habit of the customers; the availability of facilities at the destination country; and transportation (this is a lot more significant in peripheral regions, particularly islands, where access is almost entirely through public services, so is dependent on the providers of those services).

Because seasonality is often viewed as a problem, businesses and governments have attempted to address it through the introduction of a number of measures. These include pricing holidays differently at different times of the year (generally cheaper in low season to encourage more business); making changes to the school holidays (in Germany and the Netherlands particularly) to spread the season; changing or adding to the product on offer (organising a special events at different times of the year, selling summer walking holidays in mountain ski resorts); diversifying the market - attempting to appeal to different groups of travellers who may travel at different times of the year (older travellers, and those without children are not restricted by school holidays). This is where ecotourism comes in. Because for the ecotourist the focus is on environmental and cultural matters, they are not as influenced by climate, as would be, say, a beach tourist.

More recently it has been recognised that fluctuations in demand can be a good thing, especially in areas of mass tourism, where local people find the off-season to be their only opportunity to regain their equilibrium, when they can enjoy much needed time with family, and perform cultural or religious rituals which were not possible during the rush of the high season. Clearly for small businesses, paying considerable amounts of money to build and maintain their properties, seasonality can be a big problem. Ecotourism can offer an alternative to the highly seasonal markets of the sun-worshipping tourists, by spreading the season into periods of the year that may otherwise be considered out of the question.
Are you a lodge member? Do you experience extreme seasonality? Is it a good or a bad thing to have quieter times? What is the main cause? Is it climate in your country? Perhaps it's the climate of the countries from which your visitors originate? Are you a tourist who would like to travel at different times of the year, but are put off because transportation provision is inadequate out of the main season? Please post your feelings and responses at the ECOCLUB Café.

Recommended Reading
Allcock, J.B. (1994) Seasonality. In: Witt, S.F. and Moutinho, L. (eds). Tourism Marketing and Management Handbook, (pp. 387-392)
Butler, R.W. (1994) Seasonality in Tourism: Issues and Problems. In A.V.Seaton (ed.) Tourism the State of the Art (pp.332-339), Chichester, England: Wiley
Hartmann, R. (1986) Tourism, seasonality and social change. Leisure Studies, 5(1): 25-33
Hinch, T.D. & Jackson, E.L. (2000) Leisure Constraints Research: it's value as a framework for understanding Tourism Seasonality Current Issues in Tourism 3 (2): 87-106
Lundtorp, S., Rassing, C. R. and Wanhill, S. (1999) The Off-season is 'No season': The case of the Danish Island of Bornholme. Tourism Economics, 5(1): 49-68

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