Pulling vs. pushing: effect of climate factors on periodical fluctuation of Russian and South Korean tourist demand in Hainan Island, China

• Published in: Chinese geographical science 2017-08, Vol.27 (4), p.648-659
• Main Authors: Chen, Fan, Liu, Jun, Ge, Quansheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate; Climate change; Climate effects; Climatic conditions; Demand; Earth and Environmental Science; Geography; Global warming; Islands; Regression analysis; Tourism; Tourists
• ISSN: 1002-0063; 1993-064X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11769-017-0892-8

While climate is an important factor attracting tourists to certain destinations, it can also motivate people residing in a country with a harsh climate to move to another location. By applying X-12 decompositions and a panel data regression analysis, this study analyzes the pull and push effects of climatic seasonal factors between destination (Hainan Island, China) and source countries (Russia and South Korea). The findings show that climatic seasonal factors have significant pulling and pushing effects on seasonal patterns of tourism demand, with temperature being the main factor. Furthermore, the number of paid vacation days in the source country affects that country’s sensitivity to climatic seasonal factors; countries with a higher numbers of paid vacation days are more sensitive to climatic conditions. Lastly, future global warming may causes the aforementioned pull and push effects to abate, which will have an unavoidable influence on tourism industries.