Classification of Tourist Season in Costal Tourism

Abstract

Tourism seasonality is the major characteristic of tourism industry, a well know but less understood
\nphenomenon. Seasonal fluctuations of tourism demand are implying numerous negative implications affecting
\ntourist destination, tourist operators and tourist demand. Almost every tourist destination is facing seasonality,
\nbut the most pronounced seasonal concentration of tourist activities have costal destinations which attract
\ntourist demand motivated primary by the 3S – sun, sand and sea concept. Seasonality in business operation is
\nthe most challenging in tourist companies with a large share of fixed capacity, as the hotel accommodating
\nsector. Former research of causes of seasonality, implications of seasonality and potential strategies to combat
\nseasonality had methodological flaw. Tourism product, as a product with seasonal characteristic, requires
\nanalysis of performance by season. The objective of this paper is to classify tourist season in coastal tourist
\ndestinations regarding hotel occupancy rates. This is the first attempt to empirically classify tourist season.
\nSample surveys are 218 hotels located in Dalmatia, Croatia. Cluster analysis on hotel occupancy rate date was
\nconducted, whereby the statistical significance between seasons were testes by Friedman test and the statistical
\nsignificance between destinations were tested by F-test and ANOVA. Further, factor analysis was conducted
\nto test the achieved results. Regarding the research result tourist season can be divided into three seasons: low,
\nmedium and high. Low season as the longest consisting of five months: January, February, March, November
\nand December, middle season as the shortest consisting of three months: April, May and October and high
\nseason consisting of four months: June, July, August and September. Research findings are a significant
\ncontribution to tourism theory and practice.