Complex tourism systems: a visibility graph approach

The social responsibility of a tourism destination results from the combined efforts of the single stakeholders. This needs coordination and harmonization that cannot be achieved without a deep understanding of the structural and dynamic characteristics of the destination.. A tourism destination is a complex dynamic system and requires specific methods to be analyzed and understood in order to better tailor governance actions for steering it along an evolutionary growth path, respectful of the social responsibility towards the community. Many methodological recommendations exist that allow to assess these features, and some have been successfully applied to tourism destinations. This paper explores a new proposal: the visibility graph algorithm (VGA), which is able to provide the required level of information in a fast and simple way.