Daniele Vignoli

(daniele.vignoli@unifi.it)

DEMOGRAPHY AND TOURISM

Introduction to Demography
and its Linkages to Tourism
 Basic concepts

• Essentially, DEMOGRAPHY is the statistical study of

human populations (demos = people in Greek, graphein =
to write)

• In statistical terms, a POPULATION is a set of individuals

defined by the same criteria but possessing various values
for different attributes

• Note that a POPULATION can also be considered at all

times as consisting of groups of individuals possessing the
same value for given attributes (i.e., a groups of
individuals who fulfill a definition)
 Tourism and Demography
• Demography is the most important external factor
that will shape the future of the tourism

• Current demographic trends will change the demand for

tourism and the available workforces, which will
fundamentally impact on how the industries are structured,
how they operate, and how they develop in a sustainable
manner

• The tourism industry has to know how, why, when and

what will occur, the consequences for the industry, and the
strategies that need to be put in place now to combat this
change
 Tourism and Demography
• This course sets out answer these questions through a
precise understanding

(1) of demographic methods and trends and

(2) how they will shape the future of the tourism

industry
 Tourism and Demography
• After being equipped with a necessary background on
basic demographic tools, we will explore demographic
trends and their implication in a variety of tourism
contexts, addressing issues such as:

• Population growth, declining fertility rates, increased

longevity, and immigration and labor migration;

• Generation Y in the context of Travel Futures, Volunteer

tourism and global citizenship;

• Family change and family tourism.

 Tourism and Demography
• While demographic change occurs slowly, it shapes
workforce structure, levels of disposal income, retirement,
and motivational drivers of different cohorts, health, activity,
what we consume and more

• This course aims to understand of the links between

demography and tourism, the changes that will occur and
the strategies that need to be adopted
Let’s Start – Organizational Issues

• 24 Sessions (=6 CFU)

• Teachers: Elena Pirani and Daniele Vignoli

• Office ours: by appointment

Let’s Start – Organizational Issues
Organization:

• First part: Basic Demography (population processes

and methods, major population trends and problems).

• Second part: Demography and Tourism (demographic

segmentation of the market, family tourism, aging and
tourism, demography and turnover).
 Exam
First part (basics demography):

- 3 questions.
- Material: you can use book, notes, and so forth.
- Duration: 1 hour.
- Score: each question scores 10 points.

Second part (demography and tourism):

- 3 questions.
- Material: you cannot use anything.
- Duration: 1 hour.
- Score: each question scores 10 points.

Final mark: average between the first and the second part.

In addition: Students' group mini-project presentation about the demography of a

destination area. Evaluation: 0-4 points to be added to the final mark
Let’s Start – Organizational Issues
• Lectures:

Tuesday: 08:00-10:00
Wednesday: 16:00-20:00

• Team-work presentation:

Novermber 9-10
 Materials
• For each lecture: PPT presentations + selected readings

• Moodle! (no password)

 Material
The material for the first part of the course
(DEMOGRAPHY) stems mainly from:
 Material
The material for the first part of the course
(APPLIED DEMOGRAPHY) stems mainly from:
 Material

Other useful readings for the second part of the course:

• Murdock S.H., Ellis D.R. (1991) Applied Demography. An Introduction

to Basic Concepts, Methods, and Data. Westview Press.
• Pol L.G., Thomas R.K., (1997) Demography for Business Decision
Making. Quorum Books.
• Rives N., Serow W. (1984), Introduction to Applied Demography,
Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications
• Siegel J. S., (2002), Applied Demography. Applications to Business,
Government, Law and Public Policy. Academic Press.
• Swanson D., Burch T., Tedrow L. (1996), What is Applied
Demography, Population Research and Policy Review Vol. 15, n. 5-6,
Special Issue on “Applied Demography: Demography and decision-
making (eds. L. Pol & H. Kintner).
 Today material

• Caselli G., Vallin J., Wunch G. (2006), Demography –

Analysis and Synthesis. A Treatise in Population. Elsevier.
 Chapter 1,
 Chapter 2,
 Chapter 8 (Section I.1).

• Swanson D., Burch T., Tedrow L. (1996), What is Applied

Demography, Population Research and Policy Review
Vol. 15, n. 5-6, Special Issue on “Applied Demography:
Demography and decision-making” (eds. L. Pol & H.
Kintner).
 Basic concepts
• The main characterization of a population is due to:
 its SIZE (the total number of its constituent individuals,
however great the individual differences between them
may be)
 and its COMPOSITION (the frequencies of the various
values attaching to the attributes).

EXAMPLE:
The population of France is everyone living in France, regardless of
gender, nationality, religion, skin, or eye color.
If we look at the size, the 1999 census, for instance, recorded
58,518,748 people living in Metropolitan France; each of these
counts for one and one only.
The most important characteristics of the population are the
composition (or structure) by sex and age.
 Basic concepts
BIRTH COHORT (or GENERATION): it is composed of
all the people born during the same calendar year.

The notion of COHORT can be generalized: the

aggregate of individuals belonging to a population who
experience the same event within a given time interval
(e.g. year)

 Birth cohort (event=birth)

 Marriage cohort (event=marriage)
 Educational cohort (event=enrolment)
 Graduation cohort (event=graduation)
 Basic concepts
• Overall, human populations are not frozen in time but are
in a state of constant CHANGE.

• Demographic analysis primarily studies the underlying

mechanisms of that change in order to understand
POPULATION DYNAMICS = how a population changes
over time (and space).

• Demography really starts by asking: what are the driving

forces of population dynamics?
 Population Chance
• To study demographic processes we need to measure the
components of population change

• No matter how a population is defined, there are at most

two ways of entering it: birth and in-migration
(immigration)
 If the definition of the population includes a social element in addition
to the customary geographical and temporal elements, then migration
can include a change in the social label. For example: the population
of American high school graduates can be entered by archiving a high
school diploma, that is a form of “social migration” or “mobility”.

• Similarly, there are at most two ways of leaving a

population: death and out-migration (emigration) .
 Demographic Processes & Events

• Demographic processes

 Fertility
 Mortality
 Migration

• Demographic events

 Births
 Deaths
 Immigrants (or Emigrants)
 Types of Events (1)

• Death is a unique event, in all the meanings of the word,

whereas most women and men experience giving birth
more than one child. Many people also migrate several
times during their lives.

• Death is therefore a nonrepeatable event whereas birth

and migration are repeatable events, in the sense that
individuals can experience these events several times
during their lifetime.
 Types of Events (2)
• Repeatable events can however be made
nonrepeatable if one gives them a rank order.

 Births can thus be ordered according to rank one

(first birth), rank two (second birth), and so forth.

 In a similar way, one can distinguish the first

migration from the second, and so on.

 Death always has rank one!

 Types of Events (3)
• Each event is a unique individual experience!

 Giving birth to one’s first daughter Sally is a different life

experience from giving birth to one’s fourth child Billy.
The reasons people do or do not have a first child can
therefore be quite different from those explaining why
couples have had a fourth child or not.

 Migrating as a child depends on causes other than

migrating as a young adult or after retirement: Each
move is based on a specific set of circumstances,
such as marriage, change of occupation, need of a
nursing home, and so forth.
Measuring Demographic Processes
• Demographic analysis means studying demographic
processes in terms of:

 their INTENSITY (i.e., the QUANTUM of a

phenomenon)

 their TEMPO (i.e., the TIMING of a phenomenon)

• For instance, in fertility studies the two basic

measures are the Total Fertility Rate (the average
number of children per women – that is a measure of
intensity) and the mean age at childbearing (that is a
measure of tempo)
 Demographic system
BIRTHS

IMMIGRA- EMIGRA-
TIONS TIONS

DEATHS

As a tank, which experiments inflows and outflows as a

result of natural increase and net migration…
 Components of the Chance (1)
• Key elements in population change:

 Population change = natural increase + net migration

 Natural increase = births – deaths

 Net migration = migration inflows – migration outflows

Components of the Chance (2)
 P = population count
− Pt = population at time t
− Pt+n = population at time t+n
− n = length of time interval in years
 B = number of (live) births
 D = number of deaths
 NI = natural increase
 I = immigration (e.g., from other countries to a country)
 E = emigration (e.g., from a country to others)
 NM = net migration = balance of migration inflows and
migration outflows
 Δ = change
 General Population Equation (1)
• Because there are only few ways of entering or leaving a
population, we can be sure that changes in the size of the
population must be attributed to the magnitude of this
flows.

• Accordingly, we can define the General Population

Equation (= Balancing Equation of Population
Change) as:

Pt+n = Pt + B – D + I - E
 General Population Equation (2)
• The Balancing Equation of Population Change can
also be written as:

Pt+n = Pt + NI + NM

• Population change = natural increase + net migration:

Pt+n – Pt = + NI + NM
ΔP = + NI + NM
 General Population Equation (3)
• Sometimes we don’t know what the net migration flow
has been, so we use the population accounting equation to
help make the estimate:

NM = (Pt+n - Pt) – (B – D)

• This is the residual method for estimating net migration

• Note that accurate census population counts are needed at

time t and t+n
 An example – Italy 2002

Births Deaths Natural Immigrations Emigrations Net Balance

2002 2002 Increase 2002 2002 Migration

ITALY 538,198 557,393 -19,195 1,650,961 1,304,438 346,523 327,328

P31.12.2002 = P1.1.2002 + NI2002 + NM2002

P31.12.2002 = 56,993,742 – 19,195 + 346,523
P31.12.2002 = 57,321,070
 A complication
 Min = in-migration (from the rest of the country to a region)
 Mout = out-migration (from a region to the rest of the country)
 I = immigration (e.g., from other countries to a country)
 E = emigration (e.g., from a country to others)

Pt+n = Pt + (B – D) + (I – E) + (Min – Mout)

• Note the two sets of migration terms

• The internal migration flows cancel when we are dealing
with a national population but are needed when we are
working with sub-national populations
 Quantitative vs. Qualitative
Population Changes
• The processes of Fertility, Mortality, and Migration are
accounting QUANTITATIVE population changes

• Demography also study QUALITATIVE population

changes such us union formation and dissolution dynamics:

 Nuptiality (process) – Marriages (events)

 Divortiality (process) – Divorces (events)
 From Demography
to its Applications

W hat Dem ography can do for Tourism ?

• Use demographic methods and demographic information

tourism behaviors and the tourism industry

• The major keyword in the study of the linkages between

Demography and Tourism is: Practice
What is Applied Demography? (1)

• …applied demography is that branch of the discipline

(demography) that is directed toward the production,
dissemination, and analysis of demographic and closely
related information for quite specific purposes of planning
and reporting…

• …is more concerned with the measurement and

interpretation of current and prospective population
change than with the behavioral determinants of this
change…

• …tend to focus on geographic units and their population

characteristics…
(Rives and Serow, 1984)
What is Applied Demography? (2)

• …study of population size, distribution and

composition of the processes of fertility, mortality
and migration in a specified study area(s) with
emphases on gaining knowledge of the consequences
and concomitants of demographic change to guide
decision making related to the planning,
development, and/or distribution of public- or private-
sector goods or services for current and future use in
the study area(s)…

(Murdock & Ellis, 1991)

 What is Applied Demography? (3)
• …Applied Demography is the subfield of demography
concerned with the application of the materials and the
methods of demography to the analysis and solution of the
problems of business, private nonprofit organizations, and
government, at the local, national, and international levels,
with a primary orientation toward particular areas and the
present and future.

• …Accordingly, we can characterize applied demography as a

decision-oriented science concerned with aiding managers,
administrators, and government officials in making practical
decisions congruent with the policy or goals of the organization
or institution for which they work…
(Siegel, 2002)
 What is Applied Demography? (4)

• …Applied Demography is the subfield of demography

focusing on practical applications of demographic
materials and methods. Some of this work is done at the
local level so that applied demography is often viewed as
state and local demography. Some of it is done for use
by management in business and nonprofit organizations
so that applied demography is also viewed as Business
Demography…
(Siegel, 2002)
 What is Applied Demography?

• In this course, we see Applied Demography as a

decision-making science – i.e. it is demographic
analysis in the service of practical decision-making.

• US decision-makers agree that Demography is useful

to save time and money!
An Example: Firms and Demography

• The link between population and firms is two-sided:

 On the one side there are the clients
 On the other side there are the employees

• Demographic analysis applied to business means:

 On the one side as a support for Marketing (who is
buying a certain type of good? How are the
consumers allocated?)
 On the other side as a support for Human Resource
Management (which is the best strategy to manage
population aging of the employees?)
 A synthesis
DEMOGRAPHY APPLIED DEMOGRAPHY
Explanation Objectives Forecast

Medium Interdisciplinary High

Past and Present Time Present and future

National and international Geographic focus Small areas

Theory and knowledge of Type of analysis Analysis of the effects and

the causes and implications of
consequences demographic trends

Advancement of Use of results Support for decision

knowledge and sharing makers
with the scientific
community

(Adapted from Swanson et al., 1996)