explanation of structural changes in the modeling of Iran's tourism demand

The expansion of statistics and the possibility of using time series information in tourism economics studies have led to the increasing use of time series models in research of tourism economics; also, due to the high impact of various factors such as disease, war, sanctions, political events, economic shocks and many other international and national shocks on the tourism industry, structural changes occur in this industry which make the common results in time series surveys unreliable. To solve this problem, structural break points in tourism industry studies should be identified to be the basis for researchers' modeling in strategic studies and policy-making. The present study aimed to determine the structural break points in the Iranian tourism industry, using quarterly data from spring 2013 to summer 1399. All these tests have confirmed the existence of a structural break in the fall of 2019. However, if the coefficient decreases significantly, only the fall of 2019 would be recognized as a breakpoint in the Iranian economy. Due to the high volume of tourism and the growth of this sector in the spring and summer of 2019, it is expected that in the annual surveys, 2020 will be the only year that a structural break has occurred in tourism in Iran. Political events such as the Saudi Embassy or the referendum in Iraq Kurdistan, the signing of the UN Security Council, or the imposition of severe sanctions on Iran's economy have virtually failed to bring about structural changes in Iran's time series tourism models. There are more pervasive factors such as the Covid-19 epidemic that have caused a structural break in Iranian tourism.