Title: Impact of recession on air travel demand for tourist destinations in a developing country

Authors: Luca José dos Santos; Alessandro Vinícius Marques de Oliveira; Mauro Caetano; Evandro José da Silva

Addresses: Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Center for Airline Economics São José dos Campos, São Paulo, 12228-900, Brazil ' Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Center for Airline Economics São José dos Campos, São Paulo, 12228-900, Brazil ' Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Air Transport Laboratory (LabTar), São José dos Campos, São Paulo, 12228-900, Brazil ' Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Air Transport Laboratory (LabTar), São José dos Campos, São Paulo, 12228-900, Brazil

Abstract: Tourism and air transport are exposed to external shocks from crises, which could considerably reduce demand, especially in developing economies. In this study, we estimate the effects of the 2014-2016 Brazilian recession on air tickets sold to four tourist destinations in Brazil. The empirical strategy employed a post double-selection by least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (PDS-LASSO) regression approach with fixed effects. The results present differentiated impacts of the recession on air travel demand for the destinations, in which even counter-intuitive positive effects of the recession period on demand could be observed. The study relates these results to destination characteristics and discusses public policy development to alleviate the decrease in demand induced by the recession. Empirical results suggest the development of regional tourism policies to reduce the sensitivity of tourist destinations to periods of economic crises.

Keywords: air transport; emerging economy; policy; regional development; tourism planning; economic crises; econometrics; airports; airlines; income.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTP.2024.135427

International Journal of Tourism Policy, 2024 Vol.14 No.1, pp.1 - 18

Received: 22 Aug 2022
Received in revised form: 07 Feb 2023
Accepted: 02 Mar 2023
Published online: 12 Dec 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article