Modeling Domestic Tourism Demand in Galicia using the ARDL Approach

the aim of this paper is to find the most important socio-economic factors that statistically influence the domestic tourism demand to galicia (north-west of spain). for this purpose, we make use of the ardl bounds testing cointegration approach (pesaran et al., 2001). once known the main influencing factors, we construct an econometric model using a general-tospecific ardl modeling procedure. the findings allow us to quantify the impact of the influencing factors on the galician domestic tourism demand. according to our results, the income elasticity of demand tends to be unitary; that is, an increase of 1 per cent in seasonally adjusted industrial production index of the spanish economy produces a rise of around 1 per cent in the domestic tourism demand. moreover, the eastern vacations and the celebration of the holy year increase the tourism demand by around 11 per cent. finally, the economic crisis and the differential of inflation between galicia and the rest of spain decrease the tourism demand.