The efficiency of tourism sector in eu mediterranean coastal regions: The effects of seasonality and spatiality of demand

Abstract

The present paper studies the effects of seasonality and spatiality of tourist flows on the regional performance of tourism sector. The empirical analysis is conducted for 36 coastal North Mediterranean EU NUTS II regions, for the period 2010-2016. Performance is estimated under the concept of efficiency under a Data Envelopment Analysis methodology and the relationship of efficiency with seasonality, spatiality, and some other contextual factors is estimated with a double bootstrap method. The empirical analysis demonstrates that a typical linear function seems to be inappropriate to describe the relationships of these tourism features, as an N-shaped relationship between performance and seasonality and a U-shaped relationship for performance and spatiality were found.