This article aims at analysing the role of international tourism attractiveness as a potential factor for the outbreak and the early spread of the recent COVID-19 disease across the world (also called the first wave) with a special focus on small Island economies. Econometric testing is implemented over a cross-country sample including 205 countries/territories (with 59 small islands) after controlling for several usual suspects. The results state a positive and significant relationship between COVID-19 prevalence and inbound tourism arrivals per capita. Thus in the early stages of the spread (before travel restrictions), international tourism could be seen as one of the main responsible factors for the recent pandemic, validating the “tourism-led vulnerability hypothesis”. Accordingly, considering that such health shocks should be more frequent in the near future, this finding suggests that the tourism specialization model in the context of small islands is too vulnerable to be considered as sustainable in the medium and long-run. Policymakers must opt for economic diversification when possible. Otherwise, building up a strong public-health system alongside a specialized tourism sector is required.

本文旨在分析国际旅游吸引力作为近期 COVID-19 疾病在世界范围内（也称为第一波）爆发和早期传播的潜在因素的作用，特别关注小岛屿经济体。在控制了几个常见的嫌疑人之后，对包括 205 个国家/地区（有 59 个小岛屿）在内的跨国样本进行了计量经济学测试。结果表明，COVID-19 流行与人均入境旅游人数之间存在显着的正相关关系。因此，在传播的早期阶段（在旅行限制之前），国际旅游可以被视为近期大流行的主要负责因素之一，验证了“以旅游为主导的脆弱性假设”。因此，考虑到此类健康冲击在不久的将来会更加频繁，这一发现表明小岛屿背景下的旅游专业化模式太脆弱，不能被视为中长期可持续。政策制定者必须尽可能选择经济多元化。否则，需要与专业的旅游部门一起建立强大的公共卫生系统。