This article aims to highlight both some of the determinants of foreign tourist demand and the main structural features of coastal regions in Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia, and Cyprus over the period 1999–2004. The analysis is carried out on the basis of an original three-dimensional panel dataset featuring a wide range of variables collected from a large set of sources. Weighted price competitiveness indicators are also calculated with weights built so as to contemporaneously account for the relative importance, for each region of destination, of both its foreign tourist markets and of its rival regions. Descriptive analysis shows that foreign tourists' hotel arrivals and night stays increased in Adriatic Croatia, entailing a rise in its market shares. In other regions, tourist flows either stagnated or declined, owing to the decrease in the number of travelers from Germany, one of the two main tourist markets for the Mediterranean countries. Italy's coastal regions performed below their potential, succeeding in attracting tourists mainly for the local art and historic heritage sites rather than for their "sea-and-sun" attractions. They could only partially reap the benefits of increased air passenger traffic, and their market shares did not increase despite price competiveness gains. Panel data regressions with fixed nationality, regional, and time effects show that international tourist flows to coastal regions are negatively correlated with price indicators and with the distance between coastal regions and tourists' homelands. Tourist movements are instead positively correlated with the country of origin's per capita GDP, the presence of renowned heritage or natural sites, and the international air passenger traffic at local airports. Policy interventions that foster structural improvements, such as the accessibility by air from abroad, may improve the qualitative competitiveness of the coastal regions.

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