Detecting international tourism demand growth cycles

Abstract

This paper investigates the existence of cycles within international tourism demand by spectral analysis of international tourist arrivals. A modern detrending method, i.e. the Hodrick–Prescott filter is used to extract the cycle series and a simple smoothing technique is used to mitigate irregularities. The results of spectral analysis finally confirm the existence of growth cycles within international tourism demand, and the paper is concluded with a brief discussion of findings.