تکرار بازدیدکردن برای جاذبه ها: تجزیه و تحلیل اقتصادی اولیه

This paper examines the way in which repeat visiting to an attraction may affect the visit flow to that attraction over time. The importance of repeat visiting in tourism and its significance in terms of both international tourism flows and of demand for individual tourist attractions is discussed. It is shown that there are important variations over time, and across attraction and visitor types, in the extent of repeat visiting. An analytical framework is provided and the ways in which the pattern of repeat visiting can affect the total visitor flow through time is discussed via a simple 50-period simulation exercise. Some of the implications of the simulation for attraction managements are also considered. The paper concludes by discussing what a more comprehensive approach to the determinants of repeat visiting might look like. It also suggests some avenues for future work.

This paper examines the way in which repeat visiting to an attraction may affect the visit flow to that attraction over time. The rest of this section sets the context for the study by examining the importance of repeat visiting in tourism. Section 2 provides an analytical framework and Section 3 then shows, via a simple simulation exercise, the ways in which the pattern of repeat visiting can affect the total visit flow through time. This section also considers some of the implications of the simulation for attraction managements. Section 4 concludes the paper by discussing what a more comprehensive approach to the determinants of repeat visiting might look like. It also suggests some avenues for future work. Repeat visiting is an important phenomenon in tourism, at the level of both the economy as a whole and the individual attraction. For example, according to a 1997 report by the English Tourist Board (ETB) and the British Tourism Authority (BTA) (BTA/ETB Research Services, 1997, p. 18), the proportion of all overseas visitors to the UK who were making a repeat visit varied between 65 and 73 per cent over the period 1986–1996. For leisure visitors only, the percentages for 1995 and 1996 were, respectively, 63 and 66 per cent. (Comparable data on leisure visitors only are not available for earlier years.) A later report by the BTA and ETB (BTA/ETB Research Services, 1998, p. 71) showed that in 1996, 48 per cent of overseas visitors to London were repeat visitors. Not surprisingly, VFR visitors, i.e. those visiting family and friends, had the highest percentage (75) of repeat visits, and the percentage (across all visitor types, taken together) rises with the age of the visitor: in the 16–24 category, the percentage is 36 and this percentage rises to 70 for those above 55. Visitor surveys at individual attractions frequently identify the significance of repeat visiting. At the British Museum for example, the latest visitor survey (Caygill & Leese, 1994) — for 1992/1993 — showed that in June 1993, 51 per cent of visitors had made an earlier visit, and 22 per cent had made six or more visits in the previous 12 months. These percentages varied with the month of the survey: in November 1992 for example, the proportion of repeat visitors was 69 per cent. A survey of visitors to 14 museums and galleries in Leicestershire by Prince and Higgins (1992), showed that the repeat visitor percentage varied from 39 to 81 per cent. This same survey showed important variations in repeat visiting by visitor characteristics. These and other studies — for example by Hooper-Greenhill (1994), and Prince and Higgins-McLoughlin (1989) — underline the fact that not only is repeat visiting important, but also that there are variations over time, and across attraction and visitor type. These variations call for explanation. The potential importance of repeat visiting is further underlined by the finding in econometric studies of both international tourism flows (see, for example, the surveys produced by Johnson and Ashworth (1990), and Sinclair and Stabler (1997), especially chapter 3), and the demand for individual attractions (see, for example, Darnell (1990) and Darnell (1998)), that lagged dependent variables have an important explanatory role to play. One possible explanation for this is that a visit in the current period affects the likelihood of a repeat visit by the same visitor in some subsequent period. A visitor in the current period may also have an effect on the likelihood that other people will subsequently visit, as his/her opinions on their own visit, shape the perceptions of others about the worthwhileness of making a repeat visit, or indeed a visit for the first time. These ‘trickle down’ effects have not been explored in the literature. A good knowledge of the determinants of repeat visits is likely to prove valuable for attraction managements and policy makers who wish to influence visit flows, especially where the scope for encouraging further ‘virgin’ demand is limited (‘virgin’ demand is that which arises from those who have never visited the attraction in the past, i.e. first-time visitors). Yet there is little published work available on this topic. It is true that there is some literature on repeat visiting to particular destinations — see, for example, the work by Gitelson and Crompton (1984), and Opperman (1996) — although it is of limited relevance in the present context. In this paper, attention is focused exclusively on repeat visiting to an individual attraction.

In the simulations we have held all factors within the population constant and we have assumed that those who leave at the end of each period have characteristics which exactly match those of the new entrants. The only part of the history of previous visits which affects the probability of making another visit is the number of previous visits. These assumptions amount to making the ceteris paribus phrase explicit and they also establish a research agenda. Future research can build upon this preliminary approach in several ways. Research might usefully be focused on the relationship between the probability of visiting an attraction and the individual’s characteristics. This relationship would embrace, inter alia, generational effects (do some generations identify more closely with some attractions than with others?) and the impact of family circumstances (e.g. the presence of grandchildren). In addition, research might look at the effects on visiting probabilities of those factors over which attraction management is able to exercise some control. These factors — ‘managerial variables’ — are relatively few, and comprise the attraction's relative attractiveness; the admission price; and all other associated costs of a visit within the attraction’s control (like parking costs, some subsistence costs, the quality and the prices of merchandise in the attraction shop, etc.). A knowledge of the sign and size of variables outside the control of the management would also be of great use to managements in forecasting demand movements. Theoretical research may well be useful in suggesting the signs of the relevant derivatives but to establish the size of such effects requires the other arm of the research agenda, namely an empirical investigation of the determinants of an individual's (and hence a population’s) probabilities of visiting a attraction. The importance, then, of empirical work is two-fold: first as a test of theoretical propositions and second as a means of identifying the sizes of the various effects on the probabilities of visiting an attraction. A better empirical knowledge of the determinants of repeat visiting is likely to be useful not only to attraction managements, but also to policymakers. Different time paths of visit flows brought about, inter alia, by different patterns of repeat visiting, imply variations in the incomes and employment generated by the attraction. Policymakers may be able to affect these variations by influencing the incidence of repeat visiting.