Examining the Relationship Between Tourism Seasonality and Saturation for the Greek Prefectures: A Combined Operational and TALC-Theoretic Approach

Tourism seasonality is a major issue for regional and tourism development because it concerns the uneven distribution of tourism demand that tourism destinations have throughout the year. This phenomenon is complex and is related to sustainable tourism development to the extent that it concerns very resource-intensive tourism activities during the period of high demand, while it delivers a large volume of inactive tourism capital the rest period of the year. Within this context, this paper examines the relationship between tourism seasonality and saturation of the Greek prefectures, on data referring to overnight tourist stays for the period 1998–2018. The analysis builds on the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) theory to measure tourism saturation and on operational research to compute an indicator capturing tourism seasonality, for the period being under consideration. The available variables are compared by using empirical and statistical techniques, which allow classifying the Greek prefectures into groups in accordance with their combined saturation and seasonal performance. The analysis provides insights about the relationship between tourism seasonality and saturation and allows distinguishing the geographical patterns emerging by the common consideration of these variables, for the case of Greece. The overall approach proposes a useful quantitative tool for tourism management and regional development because it allows considering in common the temporal and spatial dimensions of the tourism seasonality phenomenon.