谁主沉浮?全球邮轮航线网络结构及区域差异研究

Who is the Leader?Network Structure and Regional Differentiation of Global Cruise Itineraries

邮轮业是全球旅游与接待业中发展最活跃且经济效益最显著的板块之一。合理和科学的航线布局对邮轮产业持续健康发展至关重要。文章以全球4979条邮轮航线数据为样本,采用文本分析、信息可视化、社会网络分析等方法对全球邮轮航线在时长、始发港、挂靠港等方面的基本特征进行了识别,并进一步对美国东南部及加勒比地区、地中海地区、地中海以外欧洲地区、亚洲及中东地区等四大区域邮轮始发航线的布局特征、网络结构及区域差异进行分析。研究发现,全球大多数邮轮航线时长分布集中在6~14晚;超过半数的航线由地中海邮轮、歌诗达邮轮、公主邮轮、皇家加勒比邮轮、荷美邮轮和维京邮轮6家公司运营。社会网络分析发现,由于区域内港口数量众多,且只有极少数节点度很高的邮轮港口处于网络中心位置,在航线布局中拥有绝对控制力,而绝大多数港口处于航线网络的边缘地带,因此,整个网络的连通性或网络密度较低。此外,模块化分析进一步发现,区域航线网络存在较为明显的社区或群落化特征,即群落内部港口的交互关系密切,而群落之间相对独立,目标市场较为明确。最后,在借鉴国际经验基础上提出了我国航线规划、优化和多元化发展的对策建议。

Cruise industry has become one of the most mature segments of the tourism industry.In 2018,cruise industry has recorded over 27 million passengers and obtained more than US 120 billion dollars.Cruise lines have penetrated their markets in North America,South America,Europe,and Asia-Pacific regions.Indeed,China has become the largest emerging market where there are around 10%of global cruisers.However,China cruise industry still exist various problems.Such as limited type of itineraries is one of the main problems for China to maintain a sustainable cruise industry.Optimizing cruise itinerary planning can maximize the resource allocation for China cruise industry.The article aims to summarize the valuable experiences from the cruise industry by exploring common characteristics,network structure,and regional differentiation of global cruise itineraries.To this end,it offers academic and managerial implications for researchers,policymakers,cruise tourism stakeholders to improve cruise itinerary planning in China.By using website mining method,we collected 4979 cruise itineraries(i.e.,between March 2019 and March 2020)from www.cruisecritic.com.The cruise itinerary network structure is examined by the social network analysis.Regional differentiation in four representative regions,including the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean,the Mediterranean,Europe beyond the Mediterranean,Asia and the Middle East are also explored.The statistical results show that the distribution of route length mainly concentrated on 6~14 nights which contributed around 65%.The global itineraries mainly distributed in four regions:(1)the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean(747 routes,15%),(2)the Mediterranean(1057 routes,21.23%),(3)Europe beyond the Mediterranean(1162 routes,23.34%),and(4)the Asia and the Middle East(372 routes,7.47%).More than half of cruise itineraries are now operated by six cruise lines,including MSC Cruises,Costa Cruises,Princess Cruises,Royal Caribbean International,Holland America Line,and Viking Cruises.In terms of departing ports,in the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean,Fort Lauderdale,Miami,and Canaveral controlled 86.48%of regional departing routes.In the Mediterranean,three major ports consist of Rome,Barcelona,and Genoa generated 50.71%of the regional routes.In the Europe beyond the Mediterranean,over 53.70%itineraries start from Amsterdam,Southampton,Hamburg,and Copenhagen.Cruise routes in Asia and the Middle East mainly start from Singapore,Tokyo,Dubai,Hong Kong,and Shanghai.The social network analysis is used to deeply investigate the structural features of cruise route network in different regions through the adoption of Gephi software.It is based on key variables like average node degree,average path length,network diameter,average clustering coefficient,value of modularity,and network density.The results reveal that cruise itinerary network performed a low connectivity due to the large number of cruise ports in each region.In other words,the cruise network density is relatively low.The rationale behind is that a small number of few cruise ports exhibited a very high degrees to occupy the center of the network,while a large number of cruise ports are located at the edge of the network.Clearly,the cruise ports are relatively independent from each other.Regarding to the internal structure of the network,the high modularity values(i.e.,ranging from 0.5 to 0.7)indicated that the social network analysis reveal good community detection of the route network,that is,small groups are easily identified in the route network.Through using Gephi software,different groups are marked with different colors in order to understand co-opetition relationships.With the advancement of port construction and improvement of service level,innovative design of cruise route will become the critical success factors for the sustainable development of the cruise industry.According to our research findings,we provide implications and suggestions for China to transform cruise industry as a high-end service.