Comovement amongst the demand for New Zealand tourism

Abstract

Tourism research is replete with applications of univariate time-series decomposition techniques: multivariate frameworks have been largely ignored. In this paper, we employ a common-feature-based, multivariate trend-cycle decomposition approach to examine common trends and common cycles amongst the demand for New Zealand tourism originating in Australia, China, the US, the UK, as well as other tourism-importing countries considered as one group: Others. Upon isolating trends and cycles in tourism demand from these countries, we find evidence of strong long-term comovement: they share one common trend. We also find evidence of short-term comovement, albeit to a lesser extent: four common cycles emerge; the cyclical patterns in tourism demand from Australia, China, the US, and Others are strongly correlated.