GIS and Tourism Research - Feweb - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

163 Pages·2009·7.17 MB·English

by  Jojo Luberichs

GIS and Tourist Consumer Research
The Spatial Profile of
German Low-Cost Carrier Passengers
in Mallorca
Johannes Luberichs
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geographical
Information Systems (UNIGIS)
Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The Netherland
June 2009
GIS and Tourist Consumer Research
-
The Spatial Profile of German Low-Cost Carrier Passengers
in Mallorca

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in
Geographical Information Systems (UNIGIS)
Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Johannes Luberichs
Rautenstraße 6
30171 Hannover
Germany
Phone: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
Hannover, 21.07.2009
Disclaimer

The results presented in this thesis are based on my own research at the Faculty of Earth
and Life Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. All assistance received from other
individuals and organisations has been acknowledged and full reference is made to all
published and unpublished sources.

This thesis has not been submitted previously for a degree at any institution.

Hannover (Germany), 21.07.2009

_________________________________
Johannes Luberichs
I
Abstract
Space is an elementary part of tourism. This spatial relevance makes the field of GIS an
ideal environment to analyse tourist phenomena. GIS is already applied in different parts of
tourism business and research. The examples of applications range from site assessment
over virtual tourism in 3-dimensional web space to the simulation of tourists’ spatial activity
patterns in time and space. Only the market research appears to be poorly represented in
the list of applications of GIS development and analysis in tourism science and research.
Especially within a destination the knowledge about the distribution of different tourist
consumer groups are valuable for destination management and tourist development
planning. Therefore, this study develops a framework for spatially enhanced tourist consumer
research. This framework will be deployed in order to analyse the spatial profile of German
low-cost carrier passengers in Mallorca.
The necessity is evident because Mallorca – being in a transformation from a low-budget and
low-quality mass tourism destination to a destination of high class and quality tourism -
currently faces a growing number of tourists in general and of visitors arriving by low-cost
carriers in special. The study explores the distribution patterns of the German low-cost carrier
passengers over the island. It discovers the existence of very distinct consumer groups in the
different tourism spaces of the island and the differences to the German tourists in general.
The strength of GIS in combining different spatial data has been exploited in order to reveal
factors that influence the spatial distribution of the low-cost carrier passengers and the
different consumer groups.
As the spatial enhancement of tourist consumer research introduces some difficulties, this
thesis names common pitfalls and discusses the problems arising from spatial data analysis.
II
Foreword
Although I studied the geography of tourism, I did not encounter Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) during my student life. In the 1990s GIS was not part of the curriculum in this
discipline at our university. We studied the traditional cartographic techniques, but that was
the basic knowledge in geography.
When I entered the world of GIS by taking a detour after getting my university degree, I
ended up in the environmental planning business. This is one of the areas where GIS had
been applied first. The use of it is very widespread and the methods of GIS analysis seem to
be well practiced.
As a result of my studies, I am still interested in the development of tourism research. I had
always searched to see if there were some opportunities for the applications of GIS in
tourism. I saw the development of routing engines and web mapping on the internet. A well
positioned destination or tour operator will show maps on their website, offer spatial hotel
reservation systems, and in some cases Location Based Services (LBS) are available on-
site. Increased access to the internet, high speed internet connections and more powerful
mobile devices have boosted the development of GIS in this area over the last few years and
this rapid development will continue. But even if these tools offer spatial query options (for
example “show me all accommodations under 100 € per night within a radius of 3 km of a
certain point of interest”) they are at the end of the day only pure information tools.
I have spoken to people working in tourism about the application of GIS and geospatial
analysis for research or management purposes. This has given me the impression that GIS
is not wide spread in tourism science. I heard that the use of GIS as a tool in student
education in tourism science grew over the last years. Mostly because making maps is
easier with modern GIS software than it has been in earlier times. But on a first scan I did not
see many essays or reports about GIS analysis in the tourism literature. Similarly I did not
come across many tourism topics during my frequent scans through the GIS journals.
So the combination of GIS and tourism spun around in my head when I was looking for a
topic of my master thesis. I thought that there must be some use of GIS in tourism research
since tourism is a spatial issue by definition. So I began to dig deeper in the matter…

III
Table of Content

1. Introduction......................................................................................................................1

1.1. Aims and Objectives.................................................................................................2

1.2. Data and Methodology..............................................................................................4

1.3. Structure of the Work................................................................................................5

2. Geospatial Analysis in Tourism Science and Research...................................................6

3. Framework for Spatial Tourist Consumer Research........................................................9

3.1. Tourist Consumer Research.....................................................................................9

3.2. Spatially Enhanced Research Process...................................................................10

3.2.1. Purpose of Research.......................................................................................13

3.2.2. Survey Design.................................................................................................13

3.2.2.1. Scale Consideration.................................................................................13

3.2.2.2. Data Sampling..........................................................................................14

3.2.2.2.1. Sampling Technique............................................................................14

3.2.2.2.2. Sample Size.........................................................................................15

3.2.3. Data Collection................................................................................................15

3.2.4. Data Input and Management...........................................................................16

3.2.5. Genuine Data Analysis Process......................................................................17

3.2.5.1. Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis............................................................17

3.2.5.2. Explanatory Analysis................................................................................19

3.2.6. Data Synthesizing and Communication...........................................................20

3.3. Data Quality Issues.................................................................................................21

3.3.1. Non-Uniformity of Space and Edge Effects.....................................................21

3.3.2. Modifiable Areal Unit Problem and Ecological Fallacy....................................22

3.3.3. Data Quality Documentation............................................................................23

4. The Research Location: Mallorca..................................................................................25

4.1. Geography of Mallorca............................................................................................25

4.2. Tourism in Mallorca.................................................................................................27

4.2.1. The Spatial Distribution of Tourists in Mallorca...............................................30

4.2.2. Low-Cost Carrier in the Air Traffic to Mallorca.................................................35

5. The Research Data........................................................................................................37

5.1. Survey Design and Data Collection........................................................................37

5.1.1. Sampling of the Mallorca Polls........................................................................37

5.1.2. Geographical Data...........................................................................................38

5.1.3. Spatial Level of Analysis..................................................................................38

5.2. Data Input and Management..................................................................................44

5.2.1. Geocoding of the Mallorca Polls......................................................................44
IV
5.2.2. Data Cleaning..................................................................................................46

6. Spatial Tourist Consumer Analysis................................................................................47

6.1. General Spatial Distribution....................................................................................47

6.2. Spatial Distribution Compared to German Tourist in General.................................51

6.3. Distribution of Socio-Demographic Characteristics.................................................53

6.4. Trip-Related Behaviour...........................................................................................58

6.4.1. Booking and Accommodation..........................................................................58

6.4.2. Sojourn Time...................................................................................................61

6.4.3. Travel Company..............................................................................................63

6.5. Expectations and Preferences................................................................................67

6.6. Spatial Consumer Profiles......................................................................................73

6.6.1. Regional Consumer Profiles............................................................................73

6.6.2. Municipal Consumer Profile.............................................................................75

6.6.3. Zonal Consumer Profile...................................................................................76

6.7. Differences to German Tourists in General............................................................78

6.7.1. S’Arenal / Playa de Palma...............................................................................78

6.7.2. Costa de Ponent (South).................................................................................79

6.7.3. Capdepera.......................................................................................................81

6.7.4. Summary.........................................................................................................82

7. Summary and Conclusions............................................................................................86

7.1. Spatiality of German Low-Cost Carrier Passenger on Mallorca.............................86

7.2. Spatial Enhancement of Tourist Consumer Research............................................90

8. Outlook...........................................................................................................................97

References……………………………………………………...………………………………………i
Attachments……………………………………………………..…………………………………..A-1
---------------------------------------------------------------
V
Table of Tables

Table 1: Tourism density indexes at the coast of Mallorca for 2005......................................31

Table 2: Tourist arrivals in Mallorca 2005 differentiated by nationality...................................34

Table 3: Pearson’s R Correlation for selected variables on aggregated municipality level....50

Table 4: T-Tests for age means on regional level for the Costa de Ponent...........................53

Table 5: T-Tests for age means for the Tramuntana zone.....................................................55
Table 6: Z-Test results for comparison of proportions of visitors in the training phase of life

(pupils, students, apprentices) for the Capdepera and Santanyi zone (selection).........55
Table 7: Tests for spatial autocorrelation for the proportion of travel company on zonal level

.......................................................................................................................................64
Table 8: Activities the LCCP on a flight to Mallorca rated for their importance for this Mallorca

trip ..................................................................................................................................67

Table 9: What LCCP especially like of Mallorca.....................................................................68
Table 10: Z-Test results for the zone of Playa de Palma/ S’Arenal for the comparison of

proportion of LCCP naming culture as a special amenity of Mallorca they like..............71
Table 11: Significantly different characteristics of German tourists and German LCCP at the

Playa de Palma/S’Arenal................................................................................................79
Table 12: Significantly different characteristics of German tourists and German LCCP at the

Costa de Ponent (South)................................................................................................81
Table 13: Significantly different characteristics of German tourists and German LCCP at

Capdepera......................................................................................................................82

Table of Figures

Figure 1: The System of Tourism.............................................................................................1

Figure 2: Linear project design...............................................................................................11

Figure 3: Spatially enhanced data analysis framework..........................................................12

Figure 4: Maps in the analytical process................................................................................18

Figure 5: Geovisualisation in the cartography cube...............................................................20

Figure 6: Development of tourist arrivals in Mallorca.............................................................28

Figure 7: Supply-side matrix of low-cost carrier offering service to Mallorca.........................36

Figure 8: Geocoding respondents..........................................................................................44

Figure 9: Box plot of the age distribution at the central Costa de Llevant..............................54

Figure 10: Activity rating of LCCP..........................................................................................68

Figure 11: Age of tourists in Mallorca.....................................................................................83

Figure 12: Type of accommodation of Mallorca tourists.........................................................84

VI
Table of Maps

Map 1: Geographic location of Mallorca and population in Mallorca......................................25

Map 2: Mallorca’s geographical segmentation and climate....................................................26

Map 3: Distribution of accommodations in Mallorca 2006......................................................30

Map 4: Municipality of destination for all tourists in Mallorca 2006........................................32

Map 5: Proportion of second homes per municipality 2002...................................................33

Map 6: Region of destination in Mallorca for tourists differentiated by nationality for 2007...35

Map 7: Spatial distribution of German LCCP in Mallorca on municipality level......................39

Map 8: Gi* application for customised zoning design.............................................................41

Map 9: Spatial levels of analysis............................................................................................43

Map 10: Random location of respondents..............................................................................46

Map 11: Visited places in sample of the LCCP survey 2005..................................................47

Map 12: Density Equalising Cartograms for Mallorca’s LCCP tourism..................................48

Map 13: Correlation of tourist beds and LCCP in Mallorca....................................................49

Map 14: Distribution of German LCCP in relation to motorway connection...........................51

Map 15: Differences in the regional distribution of German LCCP and German tourists.......52

Map 16: Socio-demographic characteristics of LCCP in Mallorca.........................................57

Map 17: Travel behaviour of LCCP in Mallorca: package tourism and accommodations......60

Map 18: Travel behaviour of LCCP in Mallorca: sojourn time................................................62

Map 19: Travel behaviour of LCCP in Mallorca: travel company...........................................63

Map 20: Travel company in Mallorca’s tourist zones.............................................................66

Map 21: Regional activity rating of German LCCP in Mallorca..............................................70

Map 22: What LCCP especially like on Mallorca....................................................................72
Map 23: Distribution of German LCCP and some selected spatial profiles of them in tourism

zones on Mallorca..........................................................................................................87

VII
Abbreviations
AEA Association of European Airlines
AENA Aeroportes Espanoles y Navigacion Aera
ANOVA One-way Analysis Of VAriance
AR Augmented Reality
AURISA Australian Urban & Regional Information Systems Association
CAIB Comunitat Auònoma Illes Balears
CASA Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
CITTIB Centro de Promoción de la Investigación Y Las Tecnologías Turísticas
de les Illes Balears
CSISS Centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science
CSR Complete Spatial Randomness
EDA Exploratory Data Analysis
ELFAA European Low Fares Airline Association
ESDA Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis
ESRI Environmental Systems Research Institute
GOP Grup Balear d’Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HAZ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung
IBESTAT Instituto de Estatistica de las Illes Balears
IDEE La Infraestructura de Datos Espaciales de España
INE Instituto Nacional de Estadistica de España
INESTUR Instituto de Estrategia Turística de las Illes Balears
IQR Inter-Quartile Range
IRPUD Institut für Raumplanung Universität Dortmund
LBS Location Based Services
LCC Low-Cost Carrier
LCCP Low-Cost Carrier Passenger
LIC Largest Inscribed Circle
LISA Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation
MAT centre of Minimum Aggregate Travel
MBC Minimum Bounding Circle
MBR Minimum Bounding Rectangle
NCGIA National Center for Geographic Information & Analysis
PDA Personal Digital Assistant
PIP Point-In-polygon analysis
POI Point Of Interest
VIII