ABSTRACT
COVID-19-induced travel restrictions have led to a sharp drop in Airbnb bookings. Confronted with a decrease in demand, hosts have implemented heterogeneous price responses. This study evaluates the different price adjustments developed by professional and non-professional hosts. Considering the city of Barcelona as the case study, I exploit monthly longitudinal data for 24,000 different Airbnb listings observed between June 2020 and April 2021. Using hedonic regressions with listing and neighbourhood fixed effects, I show that professional hosts have reduced prices to a greater extent, especially during the worst months of the pandemic. The findings support intertemporal price discrimination among professional hosts, which seem to adjust prices faster to meet demand and better adapt to market conditions.
ABSTRACT
This research examines how deep travel habits in the form of habit formation and reduced substitutability between tourism travel and other leisure goods impact travel resilience after COVID-19. Using microdata for almost 3000 tourists in Andalusia (Spain), we relate post-pandemic outbreak tourism participation to pre-pandemic travelling intensity and whether taking a vacation is considered a priority good. In doing so, we control for standard sociodemographic characteristics and province fixed effects. Our results clearly show that the probability of continuing travelling during the summer of 2020 is positively associated with pre-pandemic travel intensity and tourism being considered a priority leisure activity. Travel resilience is found to be strongly associated with income, education level and the tenure of a second residence.
ABSTRACT
This study evaluates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourists' length of stay and daily expenditures at a destination. The paper compares detailed microdata for visitors to a Northern Spanish region in the summer periods of 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (after the pandemic outbreak). We estimate the pandemic-induced impacts on the length of stay and expenditures per person for several categories using regression adjustment, inverse probability weighting regression and propensity score matching. We find clear evidence of a drop in the length of stay of around 1.26 nights, representing a 23.8% decline. We also show that, although total expenditures per person and day have remained constant, there has been a change in the allocations for categories in the tourism budget.
ABSTRACT
Following a pandemic disease outbreak, people travel to areas with low infection risk, but at the same time the epidemiological situation worsens as mobility flows to those areas increase. These feedback effects from epidemiological conditions to inflows and from inflows to subsequent infections are underexplored to date. This study investigates the two-way relationship between mobility flows and COVID-19 cases in a context of unrestricted mobility without COVID-19 vaccines. To this end, we merge data on COVID-19 cases in Spain during the summer of 2020 at the province level with mobility records based on mobile position tracking. Using a control function approach, we find that a 1% increase in arrivals translates into a 3.5% increase in cases in the following week and 5.6% ten days later. A simulation exercise shows the cases would have dropped by around 64% if the Second State of Alarm had been implemented earlier.
ABSTRACT
This paper studies the change in the distance traveled by domestic tourists considering the pre- and post-pandemic outbreak summer periods of 2019 and 2020. Using representative monthly microdata involving more than 31,000 trips conducted by Spanish residents, we examine the heterogeneity in behavioral adaptation to COVID-19 based on sociodemographic and trip-related characteristics. To account for selection effects and the potential change in the population composition of travelers between the two periods, we estimate an endogenous switching regression that conducts separate regressions for the pre- and post-pandemic periods in a unified econometric framework. Our results point to heterogeneous shifts in the distance traveled by domestic travelers after COVID-19 outbreak per sociodemographic group, with notable differences by travel purpose and lower relevance of traditional determinants like income.
ABSTRACT
This study evaluates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourists? length of stay and daily expenditures at a destination. The paper compares detailed microdata for visitors to a Northern Spanish region in the summer periods of 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (after the pandemic outbreak). We estimate the pandemic-induced impacts on the length of stay and expenditures per person for several categories using regression adjustment, inverse probability weighting regression and propensity score matching. We find clear evidence of a drop in the length of stay of around 1.26 nights, representing a 23.8% decline. We also show that, although total expenditures per person and day have remained constant, there has been a change in the allocations for categories in the tourism budget.
ABSTRACT
This research examines how deep travel habits in the form of habit formation and reduced substitutability between tourism travel and other leisure goods impact travel resilience after COVID-19. Using microdata for almost 3000 tourists in Andalusia (Spain), we relate post-pandemic outbreak tourism participation to pre-pandemic travelling intensity and whether taking a vacation is considered a priority good. In doing so, we control for standard sociodemographic characteristics and province fixed effects. Our results clearly show that the probability of continuing travelling during the summer of 2020 is positively associated with pre-pandemic travel intensity and tourism being considered a priority leisure activity. Travel resilience is found to be strongly associated with income, education level and the tenure of a second residence.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted the global economy. Since containment measures directly limit mobility and social interactions, the pandemic has substantially affected the tourism sector. This work explores the effect of COVID-19 exposure on people?s travel intentions during the summer of 2020 use representative survey data for 3873 individuals collected in Spain, one of the countries with the highest infection and mortality rates. We define exposure to COVID-19 at two levels: (i) zonal, according to the degree of limitations imposed in the zone where the respondent lives, and (ii) individual, according to whether the individual has personally suffered from COVID-19 symptoms. We perform regression analysis and propensity score matching and also consider potential treatment heterogeneity. The results consistently show that those who were more severely affected by the pandemic exhibit a relatively higher willingness to travel.