Abstract
Tourism destinations including the France (channel) England region (FCE) deal with challenges of seasonality and imbalanced visitor economy, mainly due to their current offerings that do not either target the low season or meet developing visitors’ preferences. This issue hampers their competitiveness despite the abundance of natural and cultural potential. To address this, innovative strategies focusing on experience-based tourism are required to meet visitors’ preferences by connecting them with the destinations’ unique attributes. The present study, as part of the Interreg FCE EXPERIENCE project, aims to investigate the effectiveness of three innovation interventions of offering a trip-planner app, organising special events, and upgrading infrastructure to address seasonality and generate substantial economic benefits. Using agent-based modelling (ABM) and simulation approach, the effectiveness of the three innovations under different conditions is evaluated. In a complex system like tourism, which is characterised by adaptive dynamism, understanding micro level decision-making is crucial to accurately predict the system’s macro level behaviour. Despite the ability of ABM in incorporating the influence of micro-level decision-making into system dynamics, it is underutilised in the hospitality and tourism literature to study seasonality and innovation relevant issues. This study investigates and critically discusses the impacts of innovation interventions on visitor numbers, users and revenues in low and high seasons compared to the business-as-usual condition. The model testing, using primary and secondary data, shows that the proposed innovations could potentially address seasonality issues, however their economic impacts vary. Sensitivity analysis indicates that larger groups, longer stays, higher growth rate and increased revisit probability can yield greater economic benefits. This study introduces the EXPERIENCE model, a valuable tool for destination managers and local authorities in future planning. By offering insights into the potential impacts of innovation interventions with the presence and absence of crises, it empowers informed decision making.