Tourism seasonality and public policy: an exploratory analysis - lessons from Mallorca, Spain

Francisco Sastre Alberti; Javier Rey-Maquieira; Javier Lozano

doi:10.14198/INTURI.27984

Autores/as

Francisco Sastre Alberti Universitat illes Balears, España
Javier Rey-Maquieira University of the Balearic Islands, España https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9006-3990
Javier Lozano University of the Balearic Islands, España https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0265-2291

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14198/INTURI.27984

Palabras clave:

tourism seasonality, tourism policy, hotels, IPA, Mallorca, policy performance

Resumen

The tourism academic literature shows the contrast between efforts aimed at curbing seasonality and the poor performance of the policies. Is there a place for the public sector in managing tourism seasonality? This question is examined in our paper using first principles of public economics. This paper contributes to tourism seasonality theory with a conceptual framework of general applicability for evaluating policies. This framework is much needed, given the scarcity of rigorous policy evaluations in this area. The theoretical analysis argues that market failures, such as the existence of public goods, externalities, coordination problems, and imperfect information, may impede the implementation of product and market diversification needed by tourism firms to curb seasonality. We also consider the hypothesis that seasonal price differentiation may be limited by the intra-seasonal rigidities of wages, taxes and public prices. Our data, using Gini coefficients, reveal little to no progress in curbing seasonality in Mallorca. The empirical results are based on the importance-performance analysis (IPA) methodology applied through a questionnaire to Majorcan hotel managers. We identify eight sets of public policies relevant to tourism seasonality. Our empirical results suggest that public managers should increase efforts to coordinate the different segments of Mallorca’s tourism supply during the off-peak season, boost air connections and facilitate differential pricing through lower taxes and public prices. The results also indicate that public managers should continue deregulation efforts to allow flexibility in order to adapt the tourism product to suit the characteristics of off-peak seasonal demand. Also, the public sector may consider reducing its involvement in policies for diversifying and promoting the off-peak tourism product. Finally, responses from Majorcan hotel managers suggest that the public sector should play little or no role in gathering and disseminating information about products and markets in the off-peak season.

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