This article models inbound tourism demand for South Africa using a theoretical framework that is based on the gravity model and provides elasticity estimates that are useful for policy purposes. It uses a well-established gravity model following Anderson and van Wincoop's model (2003) to explain tourism flows. The article departs from most of the existing work estimating tourism demand and builds on the recent work of Durbarry, but employs a dynamic panel data setting. The results show that tourists are not too sensitive to changes in the tourism price of South Africa, indicating that it offers a unique product and experience to tourists. In fact, evidence tends to suggest that competing destinations may imploy tourism products that are unique to their destinations in the region. The level of development and tourism infrastructure also affect arrivals. It is also found that distance negatively affects arrivals, but common border and language play an important role. The dynamic model supports the presence of repeat tourism and positive word-of-mouth, particularly from European and American origins.

Starting with the assumption that socio-cultural aspects of tourism demand will need to change in response to global warming, this paper identifies business and consumer contradictions that highlight the complexities of dealing with climate change in an industry characterised by fragmented, global supply chains. The paper's approach is to problematise the issues into a series of research questions (related to ethical consumption, sustainability, policies, actions and communication) based on the premise that sustainable tourism is possible and desirable, but mitigation has to acknowledge the anthropogenic causes of climate change and responses should be underpinned by changing norms for any society that considers travel to be the ‘perfect freedom’.

An almost ideal demand system with monthly frequency, in both long-run and dynamic forms, is used to quantify the responsiveness of Italian tourism demand to changes in relative prices, exchange rates, expenditure and unexpected one-off events in four main European destinations. Short-term elasticities, which are crucial for policies regarding own price, as well as cross prices and expenditure elasticities are derived from the dynamic model. It is also found that the dynamic model outperforms the long-run model in forecasting accuracy. This paper provides useful information for policymakers to maintain high market shares of Italian tourism demand.

There is increasing recognition of the need for improved policymaking in tourism and the consequent evaluation of tourism public policies. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of econometric modelling for tourism policy analysis, showing that crucial information is generated from such econometric policy analysis. A dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model is used to quantify the impact on demand elasticity of Malta's policy of supporting British inclusive tour holidays. Such analysis can contribute to improved policymaking as the policymaker is informed about how and to what extent the market has responded to previous policies – thus promoting an evidence-based approach to tourism policymaking.