Exploring the regional distribution of tourism and the extent to which there is convergence

In this paper we test the hypothesis of convergence in a set of twelve of the main tourism source markets of Spain over a time period that ranges from January 2000 to September 2015. We analyse the potential convergence by following an econometric strategy consisting of three different methodologies. Firstly, we test for the presence of full convergence in the dataset by means of the panel stationary test developed by Hadri (2000). Next, we conduct a robustness check for the full convergence hypothesis by considering the potential existence of structural breaks in the dataset through the test proposed by Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2005). Finally, the hypothesis of club convergence (Philips and Sul, 2007) is also tested. The results point to absence of full convergence even when controlling for structural breaks while three different clubs of convergence are found. We discuss potential policy implications that can be extracted from these results.