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Computing airfare elasticities or opening Pandora's box

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  • Seetaram, Neelu

Abstract

Airfare elasticities are crucial for policy instruments for the stakeholders of tourism industry. Modellers attempting to estimate these elasticities face several challenges in the absence of microeconomic data on consumer preferences. The aim of this paper is to offer a critical analysis of the practice of computing airfare elasticities from tourism demand studies. It identifies and discusses potential sources of measurement errors in the data and drawbacks that investigators face and assesses their implications for the estimated parameters in the respective models. The use of price of crude oil and distance between origin and destination as proxies for transportation costs are evaluated. It is recommended that authors be more systematic in reporting their results. They need to comment on the limitations of their elasticity estimates since these have repercussions on policy recommendations made based on their results.

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  • Seetaram, Neelu, 2010. "Computing airfare elasticities or opening Pandora's box," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 27-36.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:retrec:v:26:y:2010:i:1:p:27-36
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    2. Tay T. R. Koo & David Tan & David Timothy Duval, 2018. "The Effect of Levels of Air Service Availability on Inbound tourism demand from Asia to Australia," Advances in Airline Economics, in: Airline Economics in Asia, volume 7, pages 145-167, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Neelu Seetaram & Sylvain Petit, 2012. "Panel data analysis in Tourism Research," Post-Print hal-01831529, HAL.
    4. Dobruszkes, Frédéric & Mondou, Véronique, 2013. "Aviation liberalization as a means to promote international tourism: The EU–Morocco case," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 23-34.
    5. Seetaram, Neelu & Forsyth, Peter & Dwyer, Larry, 2016. "Measuring price elasticities of demand for outbound tourism using competitiveness indices," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 65-79.
    6. Yarde, Kareem & Jönsson, Cristina, 2016. "Implications for CARICOM member states in the search for a ‘liberally controlled’ air transport market: The case of regional tourism to Barbados," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 12-22.
    7. Koo, Tay T.R. & Lim, Christine & Dobruszkes, Frédéric, 2017. "Causality in direct air services and tourism demand," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 67-77.
    8. Sylvain Petit & Neelu Seetaram, 2019. "Measuring The Effect Of Revealed Cultural Preferences On Measuring The Effect Of Revealed Cultural Preferences On Tourism Exports," Post-Print hal-01924443, HAL.
    9. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2019. "Flight availability and international tourism flows," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Seetaram, Neelu, 2012. "Immigration and international inbound tourism: Empirical evidence from Australia," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1535-1543.

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