How much does satisfaction affect tourism expenditure during and post recessions?

ABSTRACT

This study concentrates on the relationship between tourism spending and satisfaction during crisis time, investigating the effect of satisfaction on different quantiles of the tourism expenditure distribution for Italian tourists traveling abroad during the period 2007–2017. Our analysis enriches the understanding of what determines heterogeneity in tourist spending behaviour, information which is significant for policymakers and destination managers. To obtain consistent estimates for the effect of satisfaction, we use an instrumental quantile approach, controlling for the presence of endogeneity. Results highlight a non-linear and significant effect of satisfaction on tourists spending, evidencing relevant differences in the impact of satisfaction across different recession periods. Moreover, we extend the analysis considering different expenditure categories and satisfaction domains.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism expenditure
• satisfaction
• expenditure categories
• recession
• instrumental quantile regression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Further details on the Survey, on the data cleaning procedure and the data description are presented in Appendix A.

2 To safe space, in Table 2 only parameter estimates for satisfaction variables are reported. Complete model estimates for all expenditure categories are available in Appendix D.

3 To safe space, the results for both the robustness checks are shown in Appendix F.

4 To safe space, in Table 3 only parameter estimates for satisfaction variables are reported. Complete model estimates for the overall model in the three sub-periods are available in Appendix E. Complete estimates for the other expenditure categories in the three sub-periods are available on request.