Classifying Tourism Destinations: an Application of Network Analysis

Tourism is basically a spatial phenomenon, which implies moving consumption within space. Starting from the assumption that the destinations are nodes of a network, we are able to reconstruct a spatial grid where each locality shows different grades and types of centrality. The analysis, focusing on the spatial dimension, shows clusters of locations. By shifting interest from single locations to destination networks, the study points out the structural features of each network. Employing traditional network analysis measures, we classify destinations considering the routes of a self-organized tourists sample that visited more than one destination in Sicily.