Analysing Domestic Tourism Flows at the Provincial Level in Spain by Using Spatial Gravity Models

Domestic tourism is one of the most important type of tourism in Spain, but also one of the most neglected and under-researched. The objective of this study is to (i) describe the domestic tourist flows in Spain for the year 2016 and (ii) shed some light on the factors that drive this form of tourism. To describe domestic tourism, a destination-origin matrix is constructed, and the coefficients of tourist attraction for each region are calculated. The analysis of the driving factors is based on the estimation of a gravity model and a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model. The SAR model has the advantage of accounting for spatial interactions effects among regions. Our empirical findings reveal that spatial regional dependence matters when modeling domestic tourist flows. Moreover, the level of income both at the origin and destination regions, and the characteristics of the region of destination such as the quality of the beaches, the level of accessibility and the number of museums, theme parks and natural parks are also positively associated with domestic tourism. On the contrary, distance and relative prices between the region of origin and destination exert a negative effect. The estimates of the SAR model allow us to quantify the total, the direct and the spillover effects of these factors. According to this quantification, we find that the demand for interregional domestic tourism is unitary income elastic, and highly price elastic.