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http://dx.doi.org/10.52255/smarttourism.2022.2.3.3

Measuring Seasonality in Maldivian Inbound Tourism  

Rabeeu, Ahmed (School of Economics and Management, Tongji University)
Ramos, Disney Leite (School of Economics and Management, Tongji University)
Rahim, Abdul Basit Abdul (School of Economics and Management, Tongji University)
Publication Information
Journal of Smart Tourism / v.2, no.3, 2022 , pp. 17-30 More about this Journal
Abstract
The tourism sector of the Maldives has seen rapid growth since its inception in 1972. One significant development is the transformation of the market composition in recent years. China has surpassed traditional European markets as the single largest source market. In this regard, this study seeks to assess the seasonality in the Maldivian tourism sector using a monthly dataset of visitor arrivals from 2003 to 2019. The seasonality ratio, the seasonality indicator, the Gini coefficient and the seasonal index were used to examine the seasonality patterns. The results of this study show that there are three distinct peaks (January to April, August, and November to December) and two off-peaks (May to July and September) periods. The findings also reveal that the rise of the Chinese market has significantly lessened the seasonality of Maldivian inbound tourism. Finally, some important implications are discussed.
Keywords
Seasonality ratio; Seasonality indicator; Gini coefficient; Seasonal index; Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA); Maldives;
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