The Web of Connections between Tourism Companies in Elba: Structure and Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the complex network structure of Elba's tourism industry, revealing how company type and size influence interactions, and suggesting that increased integration could improve the network's cohesion.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive network-based analysis of Elba's tourism destination, including structural, modular, and dynamical features using the superedges approach.

Findings

Company type and size strongly influence activations and accessibilities.

The tourism network is largely fragmented and heterogeneous.

Geographical position does not significantly affect interactions.

Abstract

Tourism destination networks are amongst the most complex dynamical systems, involving a myriad of human-made and natural resources. In this work we report a complex network-based systematic analysis of the Elba (Italy) tourism destination network, including the characterization of its structure in terms of a set of several traditional measurements, the investigation of its modularity, as well as its comprehensive study in terms of the recently reported superedges approach. In particular, structural (the number of paths of distinct lengths between pairs of nodes, as well as the number of reachable companies) and dynamical features (transition probabilities and the inward/outward activations and accessibilities) are measured and analyzed, leading to a series of important findings related to the interactions between tourism companies. Among the several reported results, it is shown that the type and size of the companies influence strongly their respective activations and accessibilities, while their geographical position does not seem to matter. It is also shown that the Elba tourism network is largely fragmented and heterogeneous, so that it could benefit from increased integration.