Visualising groups of European destinations

Abstract

This paper applies a technique called multidimensional scaling (MDS) to illustrate how European destinations are positioned in relation to each other. The basis for doing so is bednight statistics from Eurostat for the period from 1998 to 2009 for 33 European destinations (countries, nations). For each destination bednights are registered in four categories: domestic hotel guests, foreign hotel guests, domestic guests at other types of accommodation, and foreign guests at other types of accommodation. With bednights on a monthly basis, this makes a data matrix with 12*12*4=576 cases. The variables are the destinations, which count up to 28, when combining a few of them. Month or quarter, guest type, and type of accommodation are dummy-variables. A series of MDS diagrams are shown. Two separate factor analyses are used to form groups of destinations, which are also visible in two of the three MDS diagrams. The European destinations for international visitors can be grouped by major language spheres.