Tourism Destination Hierarchy and Space : Time Constraints in a Coastal Tourism Region

While social network analysis techniques (i.e., degree, betweenness, and closeness centralities) have been widely used in tourism research, little research has compared differences in the ranks of the centralities of tourism destinations between networks. This study compares differences in the locational positions of tourism destinations in the coastal region of the state of South Carolina, USA. Freeman (1979)'s normalized in- and out-closeness centralities are employed to compare the locational position of destinations in two different networks. Two different networks were prepared by applying space-time constraints concept of time-geography developed by Hägerstrand (1970). Space-time constraints concept was operationally defined by Shoval (2012) for tourism research purposes. Space-time constraints are authority constraints, capability constraints, and coupling constraints. According to Shoval (2012), authority constraints are the purpose of trip, capability constraints are the length of trip, and coupling constraints are the composition of travel party. Findings reveal that 1) tourism destinations could be hierarchically structured by tourists' multi-destination travel; 2) the hierarchical structure could be differentiated by tourists' characteristics (i.e., space-time constraints). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.