Language Models and Google Trends: An Application to Tourism in the Andean Countries

Using Google Trends data, this study leverages high-frequency unstructured data to characterize tourism demand in the Andean countries. The paper explores real-time data to monitor trends in the tourism industry, leveraging language models to identify suitable search terms. The document presents a methodology based on keywords related to tourism products in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela between 2010 and 2023. Results show decline and recovery trends in the interest in traveling to these destinations. Additionally, trends for local tourist destinations and specific products are analyzed. The real-time data-driven results can guide industrial policies in the region, emphasizing the importance of understanding and adapting to changing dynamics of tourism demand in the Andean Region.