Zipf's law strikes again: the case of tourism

Mehmet Ulubasoglu and Bharat Hazari

Journal of Economic Geography, 2004, vol. 4, issue 4, 459-472

Abstract: This paper examines the applicability of Zipf's law to tourism. It is established that a variation of this law holds in this case--a rank-size rule with concavity. Due to this non-linearity, it is shown that a spline regression provides an extremely convenient tool for predicting tourist arrivals in a country. The concavity is explained by appealing to random growth theory (lognormal distribution; Gibrat's law) and locational fundamentals. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2004
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