Spatial Intensity in Tourism Accommodation: Modelling Differences in Trends for Several Types through Poisson Models

Abstract

The distribution pattern of tourist activity in space represents valuable information to improve the management of a tourist destination. This is why there is a trend in the current literature in proposing modelling that allows for the incorporation of how tourist activity is distributed in an operational way in order to characterize and measure the patterns identified for tourism management. The present study focuses on carrying out this modelling in an inland territory in an expansion phase which, according to the knowledge available from previous work, presents a strong territorial imbalance in the distribution of its housing pool, the region of Extremadura in Spain. For this reason, tourism intensity is modelled through a Poisson process to determine which model best fits the pattern of accommodation in the region. The results represent a valuable tool for public–private management of the tourism sector in the area under study.