An approach for estimating the net change in tourism demand for a destination due to COVID-19

Mobility restrictions and fear of COVID-19 infection have led individuals to change their travel behaviours. These changes create the possibility that a destination both attracts tourists it would not have gained without the pandemic (visit-creating effect) while losing others it would have typically attracted (visit-diverting effect). We propose a methodology to estimate the net change in demand due to COVID-19. It involves jointly estimating actual demand (visits or nights completed with COVID-19) and counterfactual demand (visits or nights that would have been completed without COVID-19) within a pseudo-panel data framework. Counterfactual data is constructed by combining actual demand with gained and lost demand attributable to COVID-19, identified through survey data. Focusing on domestic tourism demand in Hauts-de-France, France, we find a slight net decline in visits (−2.2%) but no significant change in nights spent. Ignoring the visit-creating effect or attributing all cancellations to COVID-19 exaggerate the pandemic’s negative effect.