An evolving model for the lodging-service network in a tourism destination

Juan M Hernandez () and Christian Gonzalez-Martel ()

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2017, vol. 482, issue C, 296-307

Abstract: Tourism is a complex dynamic system including multiple actors which are related each other composing an evolving social network. This paper presents a growing model that explains how part of the supply components in a tourism system forms a social network. Specifically, the lodgings and services in a destination are the network nodes and a link between them appears if a representative tourist hosted in the lodging visits/consumes the service during his/her stay. The specific link between both categories are determined by a random and preferential attachment rule. The analytic results show that the long-term degree distribution of services follows a shifted power-law distribution. The numerical simulations show slight disagreements with the theoretical results in the case of the one-mode degree distribution of services, due to the low order of convergence to zero of X-motifs. The model predictions are compared with real data coming from a popular tourist destination in Gran Canaria, Spain, showing a good agreement between analytical and empirical data for the degree distribution of services. The theoretical model was validated assuming four type of perturbations in the real data.

Keywords: Bipartite networks; One-mode projection; Social networks; X-motif; Tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:482:y:2017:i:c:p:296-307

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.04.051

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