Outdoor solutions for the seasonal concentration of tourism demand in Northern Portugal: an integrated approach based on the Gini Index

Abstract

Measures that address the seasonality allow making a critical reflection on the application of control policies and monitoring regional measures crucial on a sector with such importance at the regional development analysis. The measures should stimulate or reduce tourism demand during low or peak seasons, respectively. Therefore, the current chapter focus on the development of a Gini Index to analyse the distribution of the seasonality in the Northern Portugal and through it control current public measures in practice and suggest the implementation of different and more effective policy measures. It will be used the Gini Index, by the tourists’ market of origin measured by the Overnight stays in hotel establishments. To understand the tourism flows the analyses will be focused on the matrix of interregional tourism flows and on the graphical technique. The results showed the high seasonal concentration of tourist flows.