Caminos trazados: redes de itinerarios de los turistas rusos en Andalucía

Abstract

This article describes the movements between cities of Russian tourists in Andalusia. With the application of network analysis strategies, we examined 1,681 displacements between 80 cities by 354 Russian tourists in Andalusia. The itineraries were reconstructed from information provided by tourists in a survey conducted between one and three years after their trip. With the analysis of QAP correlations, we explored the relationship between the route network and the distance matrix between cities, the itineraries offered by agency catalogs, car travel networks and the public transport network between cities. We also evaluated homophilia according to the thematic orientation of the visit, comparing "sun and beach" destinations with monumental visits. The routes of Russian tourists in Andalusia seem more influenced by the airport of arrival and the thematic definition of the visit, than by the offer of the agencies or the attractions associated with each tourist destination. With regard to this general trend, the only two elements of differentiation were the occasional cultural visits by sun and beach tourists, or the rental of cars by a small percentage of travelers.