Seasonality in the Tourism Industry: Impacts and Strategies.

Abstract

Seasonality is a concept that is well studied and documented in the tourism literature. Being ubiquitous, all tourism enterprises and regions are impacted by seasonality whether severely or mildly. Seasonality causes the fluctuation in tourists and visitor numbers to a destination. Therefore, some destinations at certain times have more tourists and visitors than they are able to accommodate, while at other times, there are too few tourists and visitors to the region. Although, seasonality is widely perceived in a negative light because its effects are linked with a reduction of tourist dollars, not all effects of tourism are negative. There are many strategies that are used to address the effects of seasonality. These include pricing strategies, diversifying the attraction, market diversification and seeking assistance from the government and industry bodies. Increasing the length of the tourist season and modifying the timing to school holidays are other strategies. At enterprise level, additional strategies include the recruitment of temporary staff. With the range of available strategies for addressing the effects of seasonality, the selection and adoption of a strategy should be in line with the strategic plan of the enterprise or the destination for an effective result. In today’s environment, such decision making would need to include and consider social and environmental factors in addition to economic ones. Although many strategies can be transferable from one industry to another, more detailed research is necessary to investigate the individual strategies in relation to the industry and the impact of these strategies on the different stakeholders and the environment at the destination.