Agent-Based Modelling for Sustainable Tourism

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a computer-based system to simulate the interactions, relationships and behavior of individual agents in a defined spatial context. Due to its stochastic and heterogenic nature, the method has the potential to represent the complexity of the tourism system with a broad range of possible applications. In the context of visitor flow management for instance, ABM can function as a possible decision support tool for policy makers to better understand and evaluate the dynamics of future scenarios and proposed policy changes towards a more economically, socially and environmentally resilient tourism development altogether. The following paper discusses the potential and implications of agent-based models in tourism research with a complex system approach in regard to ABM's inherent elements of agents, interactions and environment. It introduces the planned application of ABM in an ongoing project dealing with visitor flows in an urban as well as rural destination context and draws up possible implications for sustainable tourism development.