Seasonality in tourist flows: Decomposing and testing changes in seasonal concentration

This paper shows that changes in timing and magnitude of seasonality in tourist flows can be measured by decomposing the change in the Gini index, a widely used index of seasonal concentration, into two components. One of them tracks the change in the pattern of seasonal fluctuations and the second captures the change in their magnitude. To assess whether changes in the seasonal pattern and magnitude are significant, a technique for testing hypotheses concerning the two components is developed. We examine changes in the seasonal concentration of tourist arrivals in six tourist destinations in the Veneto Region, one of the most tourism-oriented regions in Europe, from 2006 to 2016. The magnitude of seasonality significantly decreased in some destinations with a diversified tourism product, such as Euganean Spas and Lake Garda. The seasonal pattern remained substantially stable for all destinations except Venice, where a non-negligible shift in the seasonal pattern occurred.