Silver Lining on a Dark Cloud: The Impact of 9/11 on a Regional Tourist Destination

Visitor counts at a regional tourist destination display an initial effect that is opposite that of nationally and internationally known destinations. They rise rather than fall after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The impact is temporary. It gradually subsides over several months, similar to findings of the gradual resumption of visitor counts to the more widely known destinations. These results emerge from two econometric models of daily visitor counts over a five-year period. An interaction term and an auto-regressive term assess the trend's rate of decline.