A tale of two shocks: What do we learn from the impacts of economic policy uncertainties on tourism?

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the economic policy uncertainties on the tourism demand, by using multiple and partial wavelet analysis. We find that global economic policy uncertainties (EPUs) impact on tourism demand in various levels for different countries. The effect is on peak and stay longer in certain periods; such as GFC or 9/11. More importantly, novel to the literature, the domestic EPUs significantly affect the tourist inflows, indicating that policy holders need to take into account EPU fluctuations in forecasting the short-term and medium term tourism demand. •EPU shocks significantly impact tourism demand.•Impact of EPU increases during crises periods.•Both local and global EPUs are important while forecasting tourism demand.