Dynamic analysis of British demand for tourism abroad

Abstract.

This paper investigates how preference endogeneity, in the form of habit persistence, can affect short-run and long-run tourism expenditure decisions. The proposed model is applied to British quarterly data over the period 1979–91 and the empirical results suggest that preference endogeneity appears to have an important effect. This has policy implications for countries competing for British tourist arrivals. The differences between the short-run and long-run price and budget elasticities which are implied by habit persistence are also investigated.