Adaptative destination model

Sunday, April 13, 2008
by Peter Johnson

For quite a while now I’ve been trying to expand the types of adaptive behaviour included in TourSim. Currently the tourists display a type of adaptive behaviour, as they move to destinations that satisfy their preferences. In the Baddeck Hotel Development model, tourists would adapt to the development of a new hotel, as more tourists visited Baddeck because of this new type of accommodation.

To take this a bit further, what I wanted to include was destination development in terms of tourist capacity. Of course, this is the classic measure used in Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle, one of the most widely cited models in tourism research. What I’ve added to TourSim is a measure of destination capacity. If a destination attracts enough tourists per day to be within 80% of their capacity, they add 20% more capacity. This is process is triggered once a month. You can take a look at my new adaptation model and test this out (or head to the Tourism Scenarios tab for more information). I’ve included a toggle-type button that will turn adaptation on and off, so you can compare the two types of scenarios. As always, let me know what you think. I’ve already gotten some great feedback, but there is always room for more.