The Impact of Hurricane Strikes on Tourist Arrivals in the Caribbean

Abstract

The authors quantify the impact of hurricane strikes on the tourism industry in the Caribbean. To this end they first derive a hurricane destruction index that allows them to calculate the actual wind speed experienced at any locality relative to the hurricane eye of a passing or land falling hurricane. They then employ this hurricane index in a cross-country panel data context to estimate its impact on country-level tourist numbers. The results suggest that an average hurricane strike causes tourism arrivals to be about 2% lower than they would have been had no strike occurred.