nep-tur New Economics Papers
on Tourism Economics
Issue of 2025–07–21
two papers chosen by
Laura Vici, Università di Bologna


  1. The COVID-19 Shock and Spanish Hotel Activity By Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana; Carlos Poza; José L. Ruiz-Alba
  2. Going the distance? A meta-analysis of the deterring effect of distance in tourism By Thomas de Graaff; Elisa Panzera; Henri L. F. de Groot

  1. By: Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana; Carlos Poza; José L. Ruiz-Alba
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Spanish hotel activity to establish whether it has had temporary or permanent effects. The empirical investigation is based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches. For the former, data from Google Trends and the Spanish Statistical Office (INE) are collected to create a Leading Hotel Activity (LHA) index and fractional integration and cointegration methods are applied. For the latter, online interviews of a focus group in the Spanish hotel sector are conducted. The analysis also distinguishes between the five main source countries for Spain and the main five tourists regions in Spain. The results show that the impact of the Covid-19 shock on Spanish hotel activity was temporary, and that it disappeared at a faster rate in the case of the Balearic Islands and of tourists from Germany. Moreover, the qualitative evidence indicates that there is a strong linkage between intentions and behaviour in the Spanish tourism sector.
    Keywords: tourism, Spain, fractional integration, Leading Hotel Activity (LHA) index
    JEL: Z30 C22
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11985
  2. By: Thomas de Graaff (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Elisa Panzera (Politecnico di Milano); Henri L. F. de Groot (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
    Abstract: This meta-analysis summarizes and explains the variation in the deterring effect of distance on tourism flows by analyzing 870 estimates from 139 primary studies utilizing data covering the last 25 years. We find substantial heterogeneity among studies that mostly correlates with (unobserved) study characteristics, estimation methods, and locations of origin and destination. We confirm previous findings that the mean total distance-decay effect, using preferred methods and datastructures, is close to a unit elasticity in absolute value (-0.99). However, when controlling for mediator variables, we find that the direct, physical, distance-decay effect is significantly lower (-0.83). This distance-decay effect is remarkably stable over the last 25 years and reveals a positive relation between distance and the total amount of tourists.
    Keywords: Meta-analysis, distance-decay, tourism flows, gravity models
    JEL: R11 Z32
    Date: 2025–04–25
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20250031

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