Purpose

This paper aims to deepen the current knowledge of seasonality by investigating visitors’ intentional and behavioural patterns during peak and off-peak seasons. It compares the variation in several key behavioural factors, namely, duration of stay, party size, revisit intention, spending and breakdown of spending in different sectors in hospitality and tourism including entertainment, restaurant, accommodation and transportation. Moreover, this research expands the understanding by examining the effectiveness of two innovative strategies of offering a digital app and organising a unique event to tackle seasonal imbalances through stimulating visitors’ intention to change their timing of visit from peak to off-peak periods.

Design/methodology/approach

The author initially used a Delphi approach to gather experts’ opinion on the two scenario settings: event organisation and a trip planner app. The scenarios aimed to potentially encourage visitors to change their visit time to off-peak seasons. Then, using a quantitative survey, the travel habits and spending behaviours of 310 participants were captured. Furthermore, the survey assessed their intention to travel during off-peak seasons in response to the implementation of the two innovative strategies.

Findings

The results revealed that although the number of visitors who travel in off-peak seasons may be lower, their daily spending is higher than peak season visitors. In addition to total spending per day, the duration of stay, part size, quality of accommodation and re-visit intention of visitors indicated significant variation between peak and off-peak seasons. According to the statistical analysis’ results, organising events (including festivals) proves more effective in encouraging visitors to travel during off-peak seasons compared to digital innovation (i.e. a trip planner app). This finding is in line with the tenets of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory of innovation.

Originality/value

This study contributes by conceptualising the mechanism of seasonality and its impacts on subsectors of tourism and hospitality. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the few empirical research that compares the behavioural patterns of visitors including their average spending per day between peak and off-peak seasons. Previous studies focused on specific regions or sectors, whereas this research investigates visitors’ behaviour on a broader scale to provide more comprehensive view. Furthermore, this study is novel due to practising an outside-in approach through investigating the effectiveness of the two innovative strategies aimed at addressing seasonality in the hospitality and tourism industry from visitors’ point of view.

中文翻译：

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解决酒店和旅游业季节性问题的创新策略

目的

本文旨在通过调查旺季和淡季期间游客的意图和行为模式来加深对季节性的了解。它比较了几个关键行为因素的变化，即停留时间、聚会规模、重游意愿、支出以及酒店和旅游不同部门（包括娱乐、餐饮、住宿和交通）的支出细目。此外，这项研究通过检验两种创新策略的有效性来扩展理解，即提供数字应用程序和组织独特的活动，以通过刺激游客将访问时间从高峰期改为非高峰期的意图来解决季节性不平衡问题。

设计/方法论/途径

作者最初使用 Delphi 方法收集专家对两种场景设置的意见：活动组织和旅行计划应用程序。这些场景旨在潜在地鼓励游客将访问时间改为淡季。然后，通过定量调查，捕获了 310 名参与者的旅行习惯和消费行为。此外，调查还评估了他们对两项创新策略实施的淡季出行意愿。

发现

结果显示，尽管淡季出游的游客数量可能较少，但他们的日常消费却高于旺季游客。除了每天的总消费外，游客的停留时间、部分面积、住宿质量和重游意愿也显示出旺季和淡季之间的显着差异。根据统计分析的结果，与数字创新（即旅行计划应用程序）相比，组织活动（包括节日）在鼓励游客淡季出行方面更有效。这一发现符合创新的待完成工作理论的宗旨。

原创性/价值

这项研究通过概念化季节性机制及其对旅游和酒店业分部门的影响来做出贡献。据作者所知，这是为数不多的比较游客行为模式（包括旺季和淡季之间每天平均支出）的实证研究之一。之前的研究主要集中在特定地区或部门，而本研究则在更广泛的范围内调查游客的行为，以提供更全面的观点。此外，这项研究的新颖之处在于，通过调查两种创新策略的有效性，采用了由外而内的方法，旨在从游客的角度解决酒店和旅游业的季节性问题。