Resumen de A New Tool for Investigating the Effect of Weather on Visitor Numbers
Although the topic of global warming is being well researched, little work has been done to determine the likely effect of global warming on tourism. Such analyses are difficult because stronger holiday effects, business cycle effects, and political or economic uncertainties, such as the Asian Crisis of 1997, generally mask the effects of weather on tourism. In this article we develop a tool that can be used to understand the relationship between weather and tourism. We illustrate this tool by investigating the effect of rainfall on the daily visitor numbers for the Franz Josef Glacier visitor center in New Zealand’s Westlands National Park. It is found that a transfer model is useful for identifying the form of an appropriate model and a dynamic linear model is useful for monitoring changes in the model coefficients over time. It is suggested that both these models be added to the tool kit of researchers trying to understand the effect of global warming and short-term rainfall patterns on tourism and tourist behavior.
