World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sust. Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2005
45
Rural tourism in Spain: natural resources as sources of competitive advantage Patricia Ordoñez Faculty of Economics, Department of Business Administration and Accountability, University of Oviedo, Avd. del Cristo, s/n, 33 071 Oviedo – Asturias, Spain Fax: 34 985 10 37 08 E-mail:
[email protected] *Corresponding author
Jose Parreño and Raul Pino Faculty of Engineering, Department of Business Administration and Accountability, University of Oviedo, Campus de Viesques, edificio energia 33204 Gijon – Asturias, Spain Fax: +34 985 18 20 10 E-mail:
[email protected] E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the state of the art of the Spanish rural tourism sector, as well as performing forecasts for this strategically important sector of Spanish economy. Section 1 of the paper describes rural tourism in Spain, while in Section 2 three time series belonging to this sector are analysed, and then forecasts are calculated by applying Box-Jenkins and Artificial Neural Nets methodologies. Finally, the paper summarises major conclusions and implications for policy makers and managers involved in rural tourism in Spain. Keywords: competitive advantage; rural tourism; Spain. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ordoñez, P., Parreño, J. and Pino, R. (2005) ‘Rural tourism in Spain: natural resources as sources of competitive advantage’, World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sust. Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.45–56. Biographical notes: Dr. Patricia Ordoñez works for the Department of Business Administration and Accountability, at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Oviedo, Spain. Her doctoral thesis was entitled Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Human Resource Management: Influence on Organisational Performance. Her teaching and research initiatives focus on the areas of strategic management, knowledge management, intellectual capital measuring and reporting, organisational learning and human resources management. Dr. Jose Parreño works for the Department of Business Administration and Accountability, at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering of the University of Oviedo, Spain. His doctoral thesis was entitled Univariate and Multivariate Box-Jenkins Methodology: Application to the Electricity Market, Tourism and
Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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P. Ordoñez, J. Parreño and R. Pino Construction Sectors in Spain. His teaching and research initiatives focus on the areas of technology transfer, production management, and forecasting and applied artificial intelligence. Dr. Raul Pino works for the Department of Business Administration and Accountability, at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering of the University of Oviedo, Spain. His doctoral thesis was entitled Time Series Forecasting with Artificial Neural Nets. An application to the Spanish Electricity Market. His teaching and research initiatives focus on the areas of forecasting, applied artificial intelligence and simulation.
1
Introduction
Rural tourism offers 9,000 accommodations in Spain, which means an average growth of 24.5% during last ten years, according to the report published by the real state consulting company IREA. If we analyse rural tourism in Spain by regions, the region of Castilla-Leon is the most important market for rural tourism in Spain, both in terms of offer and demand, due to its geographical localisation and extension. Catalonia, Cantabria and Asturias occupy a second position, all of them with occupation levels above national average. Its offer includes both interior and coastal tourism. Additionally, IREA report highlights that Murcia and Balearic Islands attract more rural tourists than the actual capacity of accommodation these regions offer. Basque Country, Madrid, and Catalonia exhibit high levels of occupation due to the fact that these regions are simultaneously the basic issuing markets of rural tourism users. The study highlights that the basic driver of this kind of tourism is the appearance of a new demand, built by people who look for open spaces where they can enjoy recreational sport and cultural activities, and are highly interested in the historical and natural heritage. IREA also points out that the delay of the Spanish rural tourism sector is rooted in the strong roots of the ‘sol y playa’ (sun and sand) model that Spain historically experimented. This fact helps to explain why the first initiatives in this area were developed in the northern regions of the country (Asturias, Navarra, and Basque Country), which were relatively marginalised from dominant tourism. Regarding the future, the consulting company recognises that Spanish rural tourism must cope with a number of challenges to achieve a sustainable development, to increase the quality and facilities of the accommodations, get the professionalisation of the sector, create an associate group, standardise the regulating norms, solve the problem of normalised supply, as well as increase the promotion and commercialisation in the external market, basically in Europe. The rural tourism demand has undergone a huge increase in Spain (from 3.5 millions in 1990 to 8.5 millions in 1998). This spectacular increase is related to the process of changes that tourism demand is experimenting at international level, where the motivational changes play a key role. The tourist travels as a result of a need to know the environment and participate in it. This implies a higher valuation of the rural issues, as well as a higher interest in the necessity to preserve the environment. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of rural tourism in Spain.
Rural tourism in Spain
2
47
Rural tourism in Spain
Table 1 shows that in 2004, Spanish rural tourism offered its accommodations to a total number of 1,758,596 tourists. Of this outstanding figure, 1,592,168 tourists were residents of Spain and the rest came from abroad. The average number of days spent in rural accommodations in Spain was 3.13 days. The autonomous region that received the highest number of travellers was Castilla-Leon (368,664 travellers in total) and the region that received the smallest number of travellers was La Rioja (16,899 travellers in total). The region in which travellers spent more days on average was Canary Islands (8.49 days) and the region in which travellers spent least days was Galicia (2.10 days). Table 1
Number of tourists, days and average days in rural tourist sector in 2004 Number of travellers
Autonomous regions Total
Number of nights
Total
Residents in Spain
Residents in abroad
Total
Residents in Spain
Residents in abroad
Average days
1,758,596
1,592,168
166,428
5,506,223
4,553,571
952,652
3.13
Andalucía
90,141
71,259
18,880
309,457
217,126
92,331
3.43
Aragón
96,678
88,799
7,881
355,803
315,285
40,519
3.68
Asturias (Principado)
92,207
89,153
3,050
398,169
382,050
16,119
4.32
Balearic Islands
43,469
8,810
34,661
341,090
47,730
293,361
7.85
Canary Islands
31,753
12,141
19,610
269,735
69,183
200,553
8.49
Cantabria
143,683
131,998
11,685
397,543
361,458
36,084
2.77
Castilla – León
368,664
353,661
15,003
897,404
855,887
41,520
2.43
Castilla-La Mancha
87,108
85,472
1,636
231,450
225,168
6,279
2.66
Catalonia
207,722
192,639
15,087
678,973
585,279
93,694
3.27
Comunidad Valenciana
114,823
108,403
6,419
373,247
339,233
34,015
3.25
Extremadura
58,538
54,205
4,330
129,949
118,443
11,504
2.22
Galicia
164,024
150,900
13,125
344,839
318,043
26,796
2.10
Madrid
57,794
55,810
1,983
127,818
121,563
6,256
2.21
Murcia
30,521
29,943
578
110,102
105,348
4,756
3.61
Navarra
66,691
64,229
2,463
253,002
240,898
12,104
3.79
Basque Country
87,890
78,702
9,187
244,214
209,884
34,331
2.78
Rioja
16,899
16,042
857
43,429
40,996
2,433
2.57
Ceuta and Melilla
–
Inter-annual rate
19.60
– 20.17
– 14.47
–
–
22.66
21.93
Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute (2005)
– 26.28
– 2.55
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P. Ordoñez, J. Parreño and R. Pino
If we have a look at Table 2, we observe that, according to estimations, there were 8,236 operating accommodations and 71,508 beds in rural tourist sector in Spain in 2004. On average, the level of occupation was 20.80% and this increased to 33.06 during weekends. The estimated number of employees working in the rural tourist sector was 13,506. The autonomous region with the biggest number of operating rural accommodations was Castilla-Leon (1,445), followed by Catalonia (1,204), and Asturias (724). Table 2
Rural accommodations in Spain by autonomous regions
Autonomous regions Total
No. of operating rural accommodations No. of beds Level of (estimation) (estimation) occupation 8,236
71,508
20.80
Level of occupation during weekends
Level of occupation by bedrooms
No. of employees
33.06
23.52
13,506
Andalucía
481
4,034
20.66
31.08
24.16
936
Aragón
641
4,825
19.82
30.21
22.22
733
Asturias (Principado)
724
4,939
21.59
28.50
22.58
969
Balearic Islands
136
2,265
40.80
43.84
43.55
765
Canary Islands
630
3,058
23.99
25.68
36.80
978
Cantabria Castilla – León Castilla-La Mancha
272
4,602
23.04
35.01
24.41
495
1,445
12,683
19.19
35.87
21.04
2,391
569
4,357
14.39
28.79
16.21
845
1,024
8,242
22.32
38.06
25.23
1,524
Comunidad Valenciana
606
6,148
16.47
24.61
20.81
954
Extremadura
184
2,153
16.39
29.29
17.45
321
Galicia
430
4,976
18.59
28.12
19.97
747
Madrid
103
1,576
22.12
43.79
28.32
324
Murcia
286
2,080
14.36
25.36
16.02
557
Navarra
413
2,711
25.15
45.03
26.89
545
Basque Country
227
2,280
28.92
43.71
31.30
342
66
579
20.23
36.92
20.68
80
–
–
–
–
–
–
2.70
3.70
2.84
20.25
Catalonia
Rioja Ceuta and Melilla Inter-annual rate
17.75
19.19
Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute (2005)
Table 3 exhibits the distribution (in percentages) of Spanish travellers according to the autonomous region from which the travellers come from.
Rural tourism in Spain Table 3
Distribution of Spanish travellers according to the autonomous region from which they come
49
50 Table 3
P. Ordoñez, J. Parreño and R. Pino Distribution of Spanish travellers according to the autonomous region from which they come (continued)
Rural tourism in Spain
51
Table 4 shows the number of travellers and days spent in rural accommodations in Spain. Germany and Great Britain are the countries from which more travellers come to Spain to spend their holidays in rural accommodations. As shown in Table 4, Luxembourg residents are not very interested in Spanish rural tourism as just 126 travellers arrived from this country last year. Table 4
Travellers and number of nights (by country of origin) Travellers
Countries
Nights
Total
%
Total
%
Total
1,758,596
100.00
5,506,223
100.00
Residents in Spain
1,592,168
90.54
4,553,571
82.70
Residents abroad
166,428
9.46
952,652
17.30
Total residents abroad
166,429
100.00
952,652
100.00
Total residents in EU (excluding Spain)
146,390
87.96
862,769
90.56
42,872
25.76
386,803
40.60
Germany Austria
1,091
0.66
5,134
0.54
Belgium
6,695
4.02
34,697
3.64
Denmark
960
0.58
4,395
0.46
Finland
693
0.42
2,309
0.24
France
27,864
16.74
112,414
11.80
Greece
441
0.26
1,666
0.17
11,742
7.06
58,678
6.16
Ireland
2,951
1.77
8,421
0.88
Italy
5,188
3.12
17,610
1.85
126
0.08
607
0.06
4,881
2.93
20,154
2.12
39,575
23.78
205,351
21.56
The Netherlands
Luxembourg Portugal Great Britain Sweden
1,309
0.79
4,533
0.48
6,246
3.75
35,801
3.76
420
0.25
3,265
0.34
USA
5,777
3.47
27,777
2.92
Rest of American continent
5,713
3.43
15,669
1.64
408
0.25
2,626
0.28
1,475
0.89
4,744
0.50
Other European countries Africa
Asia Other countries
Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute (2005)
Finally, Table 5 shows the evolution of rural tourism in Spain. April, July, August, October and December are the five months of the year in which more travellers use rural accommodations in Spain.
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P. Ordoñez, J. Parreño and R. Pino
Table 5
Evolution of rural tourism in 2004 (travellers, nights and average days) Number of travellers
Total
Number of nights
Total
Residents in Spain
Residents in abroad
Total
Residents in Residents in Spain abroad
Average days
1,758,596
1,592,168
166,428
5,506,223
4,553,571
952,652
3.13
January
70,849
66,678
4,171
208,329
180,214
28,115
2.94
February
104,443
96,594
7,849
235,900
190,546
45,354
2.26
March
125,951
117,170
8,781
307,260
252,914
54,346
2.44
April
174,200
159,920
14,280
505,696
429,423
76,273
2.90
May
132,581
114,288
18,293
318,005
234,411
83,594
2.40
June
141,732
124,760
16,972
373,810
287,611
86,199
2.64
July
177,595
154,357
23,238
678,454
538,929
139,525
3.82
August
243,318
219,522
23,796
1,239,459
1,072,338
167,122
5.09
September
145,345
125,190
20,155
442,117
337,149
104,968
3.04
October
178,684
164,659
14,025
474,188
394,246
79,942
2.65
November
115,199
106,801
8,397
262,211
215,191
47,020
2.28
December
148,700
142,229
6,471
460,793
420,599
40,194
3.10
Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute (2005)
3
Forecasting rural tourism in Spain
The time series analysed in this paper belong to the rural tourism sector in Spain, and have been obtained from the Tempus data base at the Spanish Statistical Institute (INE) website (www.ine.es): •
total number of Spanish tourists
•
total number of foreign tourists
•
total number of rural accommodations open.
All the three time series are composed of 51 monthly observations, from January 2001 to March 2005 and the time plots are depicted in Figures 1–3. Figure 1
Total number of Spanish tourists
Rural tourism in Spain Figure 2
Total number of foreign tourists
Figure 3
Total number of rural accommodations open
53
Figures 1 and 2 show that number of Spanish and foreign tourists time series exhibit a strongly seasonal pattern, as expected, given the fact that tourism is a seasonal sector. The order of this annual seasonality is twelve, as the series are composed of monthly observations. In Figures 1 and 2, it can also be appreciated that these series show a slightly increasing trend. Spanish tourists series reaches a global maximum value every year in August and three local maximum peaks in April, October, and December. Foreign tourists series reaches similar maximum values in July and August, and two local maximums in April and December. Figure 3 shows that the number of rural accommodations open series is not as strongly seasonal as the number of tourists ones; instead, it shows a stronger increasing trend. Each year, the number of rural accommodations open reaches a maximum peak in August, and minimum values in December and January, despite of the fact that Spanish tourists increase during December. With these data, forecasts are going to be calculated for the period April–December 2005. To obtain these forecasts, two well-known forecasting methods are used: Box-Jenkins (1970) and Artificial Neural Nets. Many authors have approached the issue of forecasting tourism time series in Spain (Esteban, 1993, 1997; González and
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P. Ordoñez, J. Parreño and R. Pino
Moral, 1995; Espasa, 1996; García-Ferrer and Queralt, 1997), as well as in other countries (Martin and Witt, 1989; Witt and Witt, 1995; Kulendran and King, 1997; Kulendran and Witt, 2001; Song et al., 2003).
3.1 Forecasts Figures 4–6 show the forecasts calculated with Box-Jenkins (BJ) and Neural Nets (NN) methods for the period April–December 2005. Figure 4
Forecasts for Spanish tourists
Figure 5
Forecasts for foreign tourists
Figure 6
Forecasts for rural accommodations open
Rural tourism in Spain
55
Figures 4 and 5 show that both methods perform similar forecasts for both Spanish and foreign tourists series, predicting the three peaks in August, October and December for Spanish tourists, and the July-August similar values for the foreign tourists series. However, the two forecasting methods do not perform such similar forecasts for rural accommodations open, as can be seen in Figure 6: The shape of these curves is similar, and so does forecasting values for April, May, and June; but there is a gap between the forecasting curves during the period July–November.
4
Conclusions
Section 1 of the paper analyses the current situation of rural tourism in Spain. In particular, the paper describes the situation of this sector in terms of number of travellers (Spanish and non-Spanish residents), Spanish regions from which resident tourists come and countries from which non-resident tourists come, average number of days tourists spend in Spanish rural accommodations and more. The results obtained from forecasting three key time series from the rural tourism sector are important, not only for tourism companies when they come to decision-taking, but also for local and central administrations when they come to establish their policies in the field.
References Box, G.E.P. and Jenkins, G.M. (1970) Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control, Holden Day, San Francisco. Espasa, A. (1996) ‘Características de la demanda en los estudios econométricos sobre el turismo e implicaciones de política económica y de estrategia empresarial’, Información Comercial Española, Vol. 749, pp.77–88. Esteban, A. (1993) ‘Previsiones de la demanda turística’, Información Comercial Española, Vol. 749, pp.89–97. Esteban, A. (1997) ‘La demanda turística internacional’, La actividad turística española en 1996, AECIT, Vol. 1997, pp.39–47. García-Ferrer, A. and Queralt, R.A. (1997) ‘A note on forecasting international tourism demand in Spain’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 13, pp.539–549. González, P. and Moral, P. (1995) ‘An analysis of the international tourism demand in Spain’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 11, pp.233–251. Kulendran, N. and King, M.L. (1997) ‘Forecasting international quarterly tourist flows using error-correction and time series models’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 13, pp.319–327. Kulendran, N. and Witt, S.F. (2001) ‘Cointegration vs. least squares regression’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28, pp.291–311. Martin, A. and Witt, F. (1989) ‘Forecasting tourism demand: a comparison of the accuracy of several quantitative methods’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 5, pp.1–13. Song, H., Witt, S.F. and Jensen, T.C. (2003) ‘Tourism forecasting: accuracy of alternative econometric models’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 19, pp.123–141.
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Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) (2005) Encuesta de Ocupación en Alojamientos Turísticos, Alojamientos de turismo rural, www.ine.es Witt, S.F. and Witt, C.A. (1995) ‘Forecasting tourism demand: a review of empirical research’, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 11, pp.447–475.
Website IREA (2005) IREA’s report on rural tourism. www.irea.es.
