Current Issues in Tourism

ISSN: 1368-3500 (Print) 1747-7603 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcit20

Easing the adoption of agent-based modelling

(ABM) in tourism research

Peter Johnson, Sarah Nicholls, Jillian Student, Bas Amelung, Rodolfo Baggio,
Stefano Balbi, Inês Boavida-Portugal, Eline de Jong, Gert Jan Hofstede,
Machiel Lamers, Marc Pons & Robert Steiger

To cite this article: Peter Johnson, Sarah Nicholls, Jillian Student, Bas Amelung, Rodolfo Baggio,
Stefano Balbi, Inês Boavida-Portugal, Eline de Jong, Gert Jan Hofstede, Machiel Lamers, Marc
Pons & Robert Steiger (2017) Easing the adoption of agent-based modelling (ABM) in tourism
research, Current Issues in Tourism, 20:8, 801-808, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2016.1209165

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2016.1209165

Published online: 25 Jul 2016.

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Current Issues in Tourism, 2017
Vol. 20, No. 8, 801–808, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2016.1209165

RESEARCH LETTER

Easing the adoption of agent-based modelling (ABM) in tourism

research
Peter Johnsona*, Sarah Nichollsb, Jillian Studentc, Bas Amelungd, Rodolfo Baggioe,
Stefano Balbif, Inês Boavida-Portugalg, Eline de Jongh, Gert Jan Hofstedei,
Machiel Lamersj, Marc Ponsk and Robert Steigerl
a
Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, 200
University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada; bDepartments of Community
Sustainability and Geography, Michigan State University, Natural Resources Bldg., 480 Wilson
Rd., Rm. 131, East Lansing, MI 48824-1222, USA; cEnvironmental Policy and Environmental
Systems Analysis Groups, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706KN Wageningen, The
Netherlands; dEnvironmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University,
Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands; eDondena Centre for Research on
Social Dynamics and Public Policy Bocconi University via Röntgen, 1 – 20136 Milan, Italy;
f
Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Edificio Sede, Campus EHU, Barrio Sarriena, 48940
Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain; gInstitute of Geography and Spatial Planning, Universidade de Lisboa,
Edifício IGOT, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, 1600-276 Lisbon, Portugal; hDepartment of Social
Sciences, Applied Information Technology Group and Research Methodology Group, Wageningen
University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706KN Wageningen, The Netherlands; iDepartment of Social
Sciences, Applied Information Technology Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1,
6706KN Wageningen, The Netherlands; jDepartment of Social Sciences, Environmental Policy
Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706KN Wageningen, The Netherlands;
k
Observatori de la Sostenibilitat d’Andorra (OBSA), Placa de la Germandat 7, AD600 Sant Julià
de Lòria, Andorra; lInstitute of Public Finance, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15,
6020 Innsbruck, Austria
(Received 10 March 2016; accepted 30 June 2016)

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is an emerging approach in tourism research. Despite the

natural fit between theories of tourism as a complex, interconnected system, and the
generative approach supported in ABM, there has been only limited integration
within mainstream tourism research. This research letter reports on a recent gathering
of tourism ABM researchers to define the main challenges that face the adoption of
ABM in tourism research. These include technical, communications, and novelty
issues. In response to these challenges, three potential strategies to ease adoption are
outlined: education, awareness, and interdisciplinary teams. These findings are framed
as a call for increased attention to the fit of ABM within tourism research, and a
framework for negotiating constraints to adoption of this technology.
Keywords: agent-based modelling; complexity; tourism systems; methodology

The complex and interconnected economic, social, and environmental systems that drive
tourism have long been identified (Faulkner & Russell, 1997; McKercher, 1999).
However, it is only recently that complexity science concepts such as heterogeneous and
adaptive behaviour, non-linearity, and emergence have been recognised in tourism
studies (Baggio, 2008). The tourism system consists of a large number and variety of

*Corresponding author. Email: peter.johnson@uwaterloo.ca

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

802 P. Johnson et al.

actors who interact with each other within a series of natural and socioeconomic systems
and at different spatial and temporal scales. Actors of a given tourism system can range
from individuals (tourists, tourism operators, local residents) to institutions (destination,
national and regional governments, and policy-makers, tourism lobby groups); from
private sector (airlines, hotels) and non-governmental groups (conservation organizations,
hotel and tourism associations) to public sector (local, national, regional and international
government bodies); and from local (one-off restaurants) to international (hotel chains). The
variety of actors and their various levels of interactions contribute to the complexity of the
tourism system. Though the tourism system is dynamic and influenced by unpredictable
externalities, the models used in tourism are typically linear and deterministic (McKercher,
1999). A variety of computational modelling and simulation approaches have been applied
in a tourism context, including system dynamics (Jamal, Borges, & Figueiredo, 2004), cel-
lular automata (Petrov, Lavalle, & Kasanko, 2009), and agent-based modelling (ABM)
(Johnson & Sieber, 2009). Despite several calls for these approaches to be better explored
(Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004; Johnson & Sieber, 2010; Milne & Ateljevic, 2001;
Nicholls, Amelung, & Student, 2016), progress on this front can at best be characterised
as gradual. This contrasts with the relative embrace of complexity science approaches,
most notably ABM, in a host of social science domains, including sociology (Macy &
Willer, 2002), economics (Tesfatsion & Judd, 2006), urban planning (Batty, 2005), and
land use science (Parker, Manson, Janssen, Hoffmann, & Deadman, 2003).
ABM is a useful tool to consider complexity and non-linearity in the tourism system and
to explore the impacts of behavioural change on the part of agents. Nicholls et al. (2016)
identified four fields of application in tourism research: (1) theory testing; (2) modelling
visitor flows; (3) defining and simulating different destination development pathways;
and (4) providing input to tourism policy and marketing. To address the gap between
tourism studies and the adoption of ABM as a methodology, a workshop was held at Wagen-
ingen University in January 2016, representing the most significant clustering of tourism
ABM scholars to date. This workshop covered a variety of topics, including approaches
to ABM and tourism, validating models, connecting ABM to tourism theory, communicat-
ing ABM results, and mainstreaming ABM in tourism research. From this workshop
emerged a shared concern over the gaps between the seeming appropriateness and utility
of ABM to tourism research, and the lack of traction for the approach within tourism
studies in general. We frame this opinion piece based on our conversations at the Wagenin-
gen event. We ask, how can the gaps that separate ABM and tourism be mediated or reduced
through concrete actions on the part of tourism ABM researchers and the tourism research
community? We identify three key challenges for ABM’s adoption: (1) technical; (2) com-
munication; and (3) novelty. Not limited to the tourism studies context, these areas of chal-
lenge in many ways replicate challenges identified from the early days of mass ABM
development, particularly those challenges of communication and technical factors
(Parker et al., 2003). Accordingly, we illustrate three ways that these challenges may be
overcome: (1) education; (2) awareness; and (3) the formation of interdisciplinary teams.
We hope that identifying these constraints and strategies will help establish ABM as a
viable research approach to understanding the tourism system’s complexity.

Challenges to the adoption of ABM in tourism research

Technical challenges
Several technical phases inherent to the methodology challenge ABM development. Fore-
most among these is the requirement to transition conceptual understanding to a
 Current Issues in Tourism 803

computational model. ABM processes take existing knowledge of a system, discretise its
various components, flows, behaviours and relationships, and create rules and relationships
to describe their interactions. Here agents are computational representations of real-world
actors, such as tourists and tourism infrastructure. Each agent can be assigned a unique
set of attributes and behaviours, as well as markers to distinguish between different types
and roles. Agents interact within an environment (which can be spatially referenced)
through pre-defined rules. The behaviour that results at the system level is an emergent
property, resulting from micro-scale interactions. To develop this type of representation
requires a base level of data about the key components of the system (e.g. tourists, residents,
behaviours, industry, landscape) to be integrated into a holistic view of the tourism system.
Depending on data availability, the specification of rules of agent interaction can involve
many assumptions by the modeller and a high level of abstraction. Testing validity and
accuracy of ABM is mostly dependent on data availability, as it requires the comparison
of the model results to base level data, calibration of input parameters, and sensitivity analy-
sis. Calibration and validation are stated by Castle and Crooks (2006) as two challenging
issues of ABM, which is noted in a lack of consistency in the use of definitions (Gilbert
& Troitzsch, 1999; Rykiel, 1996; Sargent, 2013) and lack of consensus as to standard
methods for model validation. These often-complicated processes require not only knowl-
edge of the system but also a background in complexity science, statistics, and computer
programming. These requirements make ABM’s broad adoption more challenging.

Communication challenges
ABM offers a more comprehensive conceptual framework than many other computational
approaches. Nonetheless, as has been documented in other fields, ABM users need to com-
municate methods and results to a tourism audience that is largely unfamiliar with ABM
language or modelling process (Waldherr & Wijermans, 2013). For example, the infor-
mation required by tourism researchers differs from that of ABM programmers. Tourism
researchers require information regarding the decisions that actors/agents make, the
context and environment those agents act in, and the modelling process. For the ABM com-
munity, information on the model’s routines is necessary to replicate and/or re-engineer the
model. Thus, when presenting ABM to tourism researchers, one should describe model
attributes and rules so ABM is not viewed as a ‘black-box’, but also not overwhelm
readers with too many technical details (Pizzitutti, Mena, & Walsh, 2014). Although
several approaches to model description have been suggested, no one standardized
format is agreed upon by the community (Müller et al., 2013, 2014). A related challenge
to communicating ABM studies is how to present results. Tourism journal editors typically
favour concise papers with clear and relevant insights. This requirement can be at odds with
how ABM generates a range of outcomes and explores processes, rather than providing a
single, definitive result. Communications challenges arise from balancing various compet-
ing needs; a comprehensive overview of the model’s technical details so replication is poss-
ible, the capacity of tourism researchers to understand these details, and the conceptual
information that is essential to provide a clear model framework. Student, Amelung, and
Lamers (2016) provide what the authors consider a good solution to communication chal-
lenges by publishing an ABM in a tourism journal where a theoretical description of the
functioning of the model is provided, and adding a technical appendix with Grimm’s
ODD – Overview, Design concepts and Details (Grimm et al., 2010) model description fra-
mework which focuses on technical aspects that allow better understanding and replication
of an ABM (e.g. agents attributes, scales, behavioural rules, thresholds, scheduling).
804 P. Johnson et al.

Novel approaches in the tourism research community

The introduction of ABM in any field must overcome low levels of awareness compared
with existing approaches. First, awareness of ABM within tourism has been hindered by
several key ABM tourism studies being published in non-tourism venues, such as planning
(Johnson & Sieber, 2011a, 2011b), climate change (Pons-Pons, Johnson, Rosas-Casals,
Sureda, & Jover, 2012), geography (Soboll & Schmude, 2011), and modelling/information
science (Balbi, Giupponi, Perez, & Alberti, 2013; Pons, Johnson, Rosas-Casals, & Jover,
2014). This diffuse publication strategy has led to a lack of core literature on tourism
ABM being presented in tourism journals, though more recently Nicholls et al. (2016) com-
piled much of that literature. Second, there is a lack of tradition in computational methods in
tourism research, and so the absence of an already existing canon into which ABM can be
placed. Third, ABM must overcome the inertia generated by a history of traditional tourism
research methods (quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, etc.). ABM needs to demon-
strate its relevance to the tourism research suite of methods; however, this is further chal-
lenged by a lack of appropriate reviewers for tourism ABM studies, creating a difficult task
for journal editors. Fourth, there is a lack of best practices available that can provide ‘how
to’ guides with insightful lessons and experiences to potential researchers. The absence of
such material is typical of the pioneering phase that tourism ABM is currently in. Overall,
ABM needs to ‘prove itself’ as an approach that would both integrate well with tourism
topics and hold value as an investigative method.

Strategies to ease the adoption of ABM in tourism

The above challenges present notable barriers to the further adoption of ABM within
tourism research. Despite the durability of these challenges, we present three strategies
that may help ease the adoption of ABM in tourism: (1) increased education and instruction;
(2) increased awareness; and (3) creation of interdisciplinary research teams.

Education
As a comparably new approach, there is a strong need for improved instruction in not only
ABM, but in the underlying complexity science and systems thinking foundations in
tourism. Even in a curriculum with a strong focus on qualitative and quantitative
methods, this would rarely include complexity-embracing modelling techniques, and in par-
ticular ABM. As ABM toolkits continue to develop, they become viable introductory tools
for senior-level courses. This does not mean that students should be expected to create fully
validated and realistic models of a particular tourism system, but rather that tools exist to
support the construction of ‘toy’ models with which to experiment with core tourism
dynamics (visitor–host relationships, destination overcrowding, the impact of marketing
on arrivals, the effects of particular policies, etc.), stressing their exploratory potential for
creating different scenarios. Technologies supporting access to ABM have progressed
rapidly in recent years; several existing software packages aim to ease this constraint.
Though often limited compared to programming libraries, user-friendly packages are matur-
ing rapidly, providing a scaffold for new ABM users. One example of an ABM programming
library and education curriculum is the Northwestern University Center for Connected
Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL) (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/), which pro-
vides extensive ABM examples. Nikolai and Madey (2009) also provide an overview of
many ABM platforms. Despite the availability of tools to support instruction and
 Current Issues in Tourism 805

experimentation with ABM, there is a notable lack of tourism-specific curriculum materials

or sample models. Creation of this content would support increasing awareness of ABM and
its potential role within tourism research and practice.

Awareness
Wider-scale recognition of the value of ABM to tourism researchers would be bolstered by
a concerted effort on the part of ABM proponents to demonstrate its utility through publi-
cation in established tourism journals (e.g. via a special issue on the topic) and at key
tourism conferences. Recent publications in three different tourism journals (Boavida-Por-
tugal, Cardoso Ferreira, & Rocha, 2015; Bonzanigo, Giupponi, & Balbi, 2016; Nicholls
et al., 2016; Student et al., 2016) and a chapter in a quantitative tourism methods book
(Baggio, 2011) help introduce ABM to tourism researchers and indicate that ABM is tran-
sitioning into the tourism domain.
The accessibility of ABM to interested tourism researchers would also be greatly
improved by a central repository of basic knowledge and sample models tuned to
tourism applications. Many starting with ABM in tourism research will face similar ques-
tions: is ABM a useful tool to answer the research question; what modelling platform to use;
where to set system boundaries; how to involve stakeholders; how to validate the model?
Answers depend on the individual context, but it helps to know what has previously been
attempted and found to work. Experienced researchers have hard-won knowledge of these
issues, but most of it is tacit. A ‘first-aid-kit’ for ABM and tourism would help make some
of this knowledge explicit, keeping users from needlessly replicating past efforts, instead
accelerating advances in the field. Although such a resource specific to tourism researchers
still needs to be developed, Macal and North (2006), Castle and Crooks (2006), and Macal
(2016) give general information of how to get started using ABM and describe when to use
it and how to build a model with details such as agent attributes, behaviour rules, agent and
model processes. To compare and select a specific modelling platform, Balbi and Giupponi
(2010) provide an overview of available software packages, their applications to different
research objects and the required programming skill-level. A first-aid kit developed for
tourism researchers should include examples of previous tourism ABM models (e.g.
Nicholls et al., 2016), including basic tourism relevant mechanisms (e.g. flow dispersal,
preference decision-making) and model process descriptions, giving an overview of the
problems that are already known by the ‘tourism ABM community’ and possible solutions
or paths to address them. However, framing these paths can be challenging, as there is no
universal solution for specific problems such as ‘how many parameters should the model
have?’, ‘how many agents?’, and ‘how should one translate tourism theories into program-
mable computer behaviours?’. The first-aid kit should focus on framing a general approach
to problem solving and model construction, rather than context-specific support. For
example, Macal (2016) and García-Magariño (2015) address the need to establish a
common vocabulary for dealing with ABM, and to establish process guidelines for devel-
oping ABM.

Interdisciplinary teams
In most cases, developing an agent-based model requires advanced knowledge of the
research subject and the key relevant scientific disciplines, in addition to a range of
skills, most notably with respect to modelling, communication, and managing stakeholder
participation. These requirements will only become stricter as ABM matures as a valid
806 P. Johnson et al.

approach to tourism research and expectations increase. It is virtually impossible for any
individual to master all the knowledge and skills required. Forming interdisciplinary
teams of tourism researchers, process managers, disciplinary specialists, programmers,
and even industry or community stakeholders is one solution. The learning curve of devel-
oping a workable form of communication within the team is often steep, but benefits far
outweigh costs. The most notable ABM applications in tourism were all products of inter-
disciplinary teams. A prominent example is the Canada–Alps–Andorra project (Scott et al.,
2015), featuring an interdisciplinary team combining knowledge of tourism, ABM, snow
modelling, and geospatial analysis to provide a body of research on climate change
impacts. Synergies can be realized not only within project teams, but also among different
teams. Exchanges during the Wageningen workshop, for example, enriched participants’
understanding of many aspects of the ABM-tourism nexus, including theoretical insights,
methodological possibilities, challenges, and practical solutions to recurring problems.
Community development is crucial, if only as a kind of interdisciplinary team formation
at a meta-level.

The way forward for ABM in tourism research

The goal of this letter is to frame the current role of ABM in tourism research as a discussion
between adoption challenges and possible solutions. The main challenges to adoption –
technical, communication, and novelty – are not unique to ABM and tourism, but are
found in the introduction of many technologies into various disciplines (Parker et al.,
2003; Rogers, 2010). Despite the often durable nature of technology adoption challenges,
the three strategies presented here all provide ways to advance better integration of ABM
with tourism research. We collectively believe that ABM has much to offer tourism, and
indeed the tourism research community has been quite forward looking in its historical
investigation and adoption of new techniques, particularly in exploring complexity and
systems approaches from a theoretical perspective.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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