The effects of terrorism on tourism in Basque Country and Northern Ireland

The aim of this research is to investigate how terrorism incidents affect tourist arrivals. Using a Vector Autoregressive model, I calculated how a terrorist incident in Basque Country in Spain will affect its monthly tourist arrivals and how a terrorist incident in Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom will affect its annual tourist arrivals. Results show that terrorism has a negative effect on tourism by reducing the future arrivals of tourists in that region. Forecasting results show that a terrorist incident will keep reducing the number of tourist arrivals in the second and third year after the incident for both regions.