Can domestic tourism relieve the COVID-19 tourist industry crisis? The case of Spain

Abstract

This paper attempts to evaluate the capacity of Spanish domestic tourism to relieve the national travel industry crisis in the situation of a complete or significant loss of international demand, such as the one being produced by COVID-19. The results show that though Spanish domestic tourism is expected to fall by 42.64% compared to 2019 due to the loss of income and the fear of travelling, it can still generate 33% of the pre-crisis overnight stays, assuming that 50% of outbound tourism can be reoriented to the domestic market. On the regional level, the potential of domestic tourism varies significantly and may generate from 10% of the pre-crisis overnight stays in the Balearic Islands and Canary Islands to 70% in Castille-La Mancha. This figure depends on the traditional orientation of a region's portfolio on the domestic market, the volatility of its domestic demand and the capacity to attract new segments of domestic tourists. An important novel feature of this research is the use of the value-at-risk methodology to estimate the maximum expected loss of domestic travel as a component of the tourism demand portfolio.