La modelización de la demanda de turismo de economías emergentes: el caso de la llegada de turistas rusos a España

International tourism is one of the most important economic sectors for the Spanish economy. However, in spite of this importance, there are not many studies that have identified the main determinants of demand for international tourism to Spain. The few existing studies are focused on the analysis of British and German visitors, without paying attention to other important and emerging nationalities, like Russians. Russia is one of the main outbound tourism markets worldwide. The dynamism showed by this market reveals a high potential, and involves a great opportunity for the Spanish tourism sector to increase its participation in the international tourism market. It is for this reason that the main objective of our research is to build a robust econometric model that allows us (i) to determine the most important variables that explain the Russian demand for tourism to Spain, and (ii) to quantify the impacts of these variables on this tourism demand. Our results show the importance of economic factors, such as the income of Russians, the relative cost of living in Spain with respect to Russia, and the relative cost of living in Spain with respect to other competing countries to attract Russian visitors. Our results also show the importance of certain specific events such as the terrorist attacks of ETA and the 11-M, the riots in some Arab countries of the Mediterranean basin, and the change in the visa policy between the European Union and Russia.