It is recognised that the tourism industry is vulnerable to some form of crises or disaster. However, despite the attention given to the nature and consequences of tourism crises and disasters, there is a gap in the literature regarding the ex-post detection of these events. In this article, we estimate both the number and date of structural breaks in international tourism arrival series for 25 countries and Madeira Island using the Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test. We compare the date of tourism crises and disasters to the dating of these structural breaks. We observe that tourism crises and disasters are largely consistent with the dates of breaks. Therefore, this method allows us to solve a gap in the tourism industry related to the correct allocation of negative shocks in international tourism arrival demand to crisis or disaster phenomena. •We study the number and date of structural breaks in international tourism demand.•We use Bai and Perron (1998) structural break test for 25 countries and Madeira.•We fill a gap in the literature regarding the ex-post detection of tourism crisis.•We compare the date of tourism crises to the dating of these structural breaks.•We observe those tourism crises are largely consistent with the dates of breaks.