"Because of the seasonal and cyclical nature of tourism, the sector is characterised by a high incidence of seasonal, part-time and casual employment"

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Seasonality, tourism

Richard Butler

Department of Management, University of

Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

Seasonality has long been noted as a characteris-

tic of tourism and is viewed as an almost insur-

mountable problem (Baum and Lundtorp 2001).

It has been present in ▶ leisure from the earliest times with particular periods known as “seasons”

for specific leisure activities, such as “the hunting

season.” Many destinations have two seasons,

one of high demand and one of limited or no

demand, but few (generally mountainous loca-

tions) have both a summer and a winter season.

A common definition of seasonality is “a tem-

poral imbalance in the phenomenon of tourism,

which may be expressed in terms of such ele-

ments as numbers of visitors, expenditure of vis-

itors, traffic on highways and other forms of

transportation, employment and admissions to

attractions” (Butler 2001: 4). Seasonality has

been portrayed in most cases as a problem that

affects the optimal efficient operation of tourism

enterprises.

Causes of seasonality

Variation in the volume of tourism is a result of

both natural and human-induced causes. The

simplest form of seasonality reflects the natural

climatic seasons, which vary considerably with

▶ location, the greatest range being experienced at locations in high latitudes, furthest from the

equator.

Seasonality in tourism is also caused by

human activities and policies. Traditionally

many countries scheduled school holidays during

the summer months so children could participate

in agricultural work. This practice has continued

despite there no longer being a need for child

labor on farms, and this anachronism is the

main reason for seasonality among the major

tourism-generating countries. School holidays

tend to force families with children in ▶ educa- tion to take holidays during that period. As this

period also coincides with the most suitable

weather for many outdoor activities, summer is

generally the season of peak demand for most

forms of ▶ recreation and for visitation to destinations.

Other human-induced causes of seasonality

include holidays (“holy days”), which reflect the

greater significance of ▶ religion in earlier soci- eties. Religious influences are reflected in statu-

tory days off ▶ work on Sabbaths and their equivalents, and other periods of significance

such as Christmas and Easter, as well as tradi-

tional pagan celebrations such as New Year and

Halloween.

Very few places experience a constant level of

tourism throughout the year. Even major urban

centers of the world close to the equator

# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 J. Jafari, H. Xiao (eds.), Encyclopedia of Tourism, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_168-1

experience some variation in their levels of visi-

tation, reflecting seasonal levels of demand in the

▶ tourist-generating countries. When their resi- dents have designated vacation periods, their sea-

sonal demand will be reflected in their chosen

destinations. Because seasonality has both natu-

ral and institutional causes and is present in both

the ▶ supply and demand aspects of tourism, it is difficult to overcome and to achieve a constant

flow of arrivals year round.

Those ▶ tourist activities which require natu- ral attributes (such as snow for skiing; wildlife for

hunting, fishing, and ▶ ecotourism; large waves for surfing) are most prone to seasonality. The

more specialized a ▶ destination is, the more seasonal it is likely to be. It has also been argued

that the more remote a destination is, the more

likely it is to be seasonal (Butler 1998). Prior

research has argued that temporal polarization

mirrors and perhaps reinforces spatial polariza-

tion. It seems likely that inertia is a major factor

in the presence of seasonality, with refusal to

change conventional holiday periods by govern-

ments and reluctance to change ▶ vacation habits by many greatly affecting the temporal pattern of

demand.

The complex nature of seasonality

Seasonality is seen as a problem because of

uneven (inefficient) use of facilities throughout

the year. Yacoumis (1980) was the first to explore

the ways in which destinations attempted to over-

come this difficulty. However, despite a wide and

long-standing range of attempts to modify sea-

sonality (Butler 2001), relatively little has been

achieved. In some cases, promoting off-season

travel has resulted in increased peak-season

travel and a smaller increase in “shoulder”

period, accentuating rather than diminishing the

problem of seasonal visitation (Bar-On 1975).

Efforts to change viewpoints and opportunities

for ▶ travel among populations in tourist- generating regions might be more successful in

alleviating seasonality than the traditional focus

on modifying the supply in destinations. More

▶ attention needs to be paid to modifying percep- tions on the demand side, focusing on the “push”

rather than the “pull” motivations.

For both physical and sociocultural environ-

ments, seasonality can be viewed more positively

as a necessary period of relief from tourists and

tourism. ▶ Flora and fauna all suffer impacts (Wall and Matheison 2006). The “off-season”

provides the ▶ resources with a chance to recu- perate from the impacts of human use and regen-

erate prior to the next season. Residents of many

destinations also appreciate a ▶ time free from visitation, to allow them to repair, renovate, and

improve facilities, as well as being freed from

serving tourists and being able to return to a

pre-tourism way of life for a part of the year.

It would be a mistake to view seasonality as

only negative. If, in the ▶ future, ▶ sustainability is to be a major factor in tourism ▶ development, then consideration of the physical and sociocul-

tural environments and their need for recupera-

tion periods means that seasonal fluctuations in

the level of tourism should perhaps be viewed and

addressed in future research as a necessity rather

than an inconvenience. Research attention should

be focused more on identifying ways of modify-

ing demand in the origin regions rather than on

amending supply in the destinations.

See also ▶ Demand modeling, ▶ destination, ▶ leisure, ▶ recreation, ▶ supply.

References

Bar-On, R. 1975 Seasonality in Tourism. London: Econ-

omist Intelligence Unit.

Baum, T., and S. Lundtorp, eds. 2001 Seasonality in

Tourism. Amsterdam: Pergamon.

Butler, R. 1998 Seasonality in Tourism: Issues and Impli-

cations. The Tourist Review 3:18-24.

Butler, R. 2001 Seasonality in Tourism: Issues and Impli-

cations. In Seasonality in Tourism, T. Baum and S. Lundtorp, eds., pp.5-22. Amsterdam: Pergamon.

Wall, G., and A. Matheison 2006 Tourism: Change,

Impacts, and Opportunities. Harlow: Prentice Hall.

Yacoumis, J. 1980 Tackling Seasonality: The Case of Sri

Lanka. Tourism Management 1(2):84-98.

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