The economic impact of the tourism moratoria in the Canary Islands 2003-2017

In the early 2000s, the Parliament of the Canary Islands passed a series of tourism moratoria to restrict the growth in tourism supply. Even though the effects of moratoria have been covered in the literature, there is little quantitative evidence about their economic impact on the destinations, particularly in relation to the goal of increasing the quality of the accommodation supply. In order to fill this gap, this paper employs both regression and computable general equilibrium (CGE) methods to estimate the economic impact of the increased 5-star capacity acquired by the Canary Islands during the three moratoria periods between 2003 and 2017. The regression results show that the successive moratoria had a significant impact on the 5-star hotel supply in the Islands, while the CGE model translates the extra capacity into a positive impact on social welfare, with output increases in the sectors that complement tourism activity.