The main goal of this study is to construct a robust econometric model that allows us to know and quantify the impact of the most important variables that explain the British demand for tourism to Spain. For this purpose, we find out if there is a long-run relationship between tourism demand and a set of economic explanatory variables, and we model such long-run relationship where we also include the effect of some special events. Finally, we offer a point and interval estimation of these effects on the British demand for tourism to Spain. Our results reveal the importance of economic factors such as the British income and the evolution of the real prices both in Spain and in Portugal. Moreover, the terrorist attacks of ETA and 11-M had a negative effect on the British demand for tourism to Spain. On the contrary, the political and social instability observed in some Arabic countries had a positive effect.

Key words: tourism demand modelling, ARDL model, bootstrap.
Clasificación JEL: L83, C22, C51, C52.