The sister cities program and tourism

Abstract

This research attempts to examine the extent to which the Sister Cities program, affects local tourism. The theoretical model presented here argues that for both countries to benefit from that program a mutual compatibility must be met. The compatibility requirements suggested are same size category and mutual cultural environment that includes political, religious, and ideological agenda. Empirical testing has found that the most beneficial coupling method, in terms of the number of tourists and the length of time they spend, was the same sizes method (Big-Big and Small-Small), with an emphasis on Big-Big, which was found to be the best coupling method. The model designed here, and the empirical results may assist tourism policy makers to design a more efficient Sister Cities engagement policy for their country.