Tourist Inflow Research Articles

People’s Republic of China—Macao Special Administrative Region: 2022 Article IV Consultation Discussions

Macao SAR’s recovery is expected to continue in 2022, but it will take several years before the economy returns to its pre-crisis level. Although strong fiscal support and the financial strength of Macao SAR’s casino groups cushioned employment and consumption, the sharp contraction in activity exposed Macao SAR’s vulnerability to external forces affecting the inflow of tourists. Short-term risks to the outlook include a re-intensification of the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in Macao SAR’s financial sector stress. The heavy impact of the pandemic on Macao SAR’s growth highlights the need to diversify the economy beyond the gaming industry. The high exposure to climate-related shocks poses long-term concerns.

The perceived impact of tourism development and sustainable strategies for residents of Varkala, South India

Tourism is an important business for contemporary society and is emerging as a major economic activity globally. Technological expansion and economic divergence have created a tourism friendly environment in the present age of globalization. India has a great geographical, historical and cultural heritage that drives tourism in the country. The Varkala cliff is a geoheritge site and popular tourist destination in Kerala where inhabitants earn a means of living by involving them in medical, pilgrim, beaches, and nature-based tourism. The tourist inflow to Varkala has increased tremendously over time. This paper investigates the impact of tourism the on the local community and alternative strategies of livelihood for residents in Varkala. The aims and objectives of the research are achieved through the use of a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). Semi-structured questionnaires were prepared for 100 households and detailed face to face interviews were conducted with the 13 chief informers. Data were analyzed using correlation, regression analysis and ANOVA tests to examine the relationship between tourism and income level of the local community. The major findings of the paper show that tourism is the major source of livelihood for the local communities in Varkala. While the tourism activities in the study area provide a meaningful source of livelihood, it is imperative to find alternative strategies of producing income, due to the instability and seasonality of the tourism industry. The investigation suggests managers within the study area should formulate plans, policies and strategies that will improve the tourism industry and involve local community members in the decision making process and management of tourism activities.

Can tourism market diversification mitigate the adverse effects of a blockade on tourism? Evidence from Qatar

This study examines the effects of an unfavorable political event or environmental hostility, namely, a blockade affecting international tourist inflows, and how tourism market diversification (TMD) could mitigate the adverse effects in the case of Qatar. To quantify these effects, we adopted a standard tourism-demand model and augmented it with a Herfindahl index (HI) for the geographical diversification of tourism exports, a dummy variable for the blockade, and an interaction variable. We further analyzed the tourist inflows from various regions using regional dummies and their interaction terms to capture the different impacts of the blockade on Qatar’s inbound tourists from 46 source countries between 2006 and 2019. This study applied a panel-based differenced system-generalized method-of-moments estimation to reveal several interesting findings. First, there was a significant positive individual effect of TMD on inbound tourism. Second, during the blockade, Qatar witnessed growing tourist inflows from Asia and Australasia, the Americas, and Europe. However, the incident inevitably placed severe constraints on some tourist flows to Qatar, primarily from Middle Eastern and African countries. Moreover, although the HI has a positive impact on tourism growth, our study revealed that the interaction terms between the HI and the blockade are only statistically significant in some cases, implying that a diversification strategy cannot completely mitigate the harmful effects of a blockade on tourism due to the severity of blockade effect. Nevertheless, a TMD strategy appears to be successful at the individual level.

RETRACTED: The Impact of Geopolitical and Pandemic Risks on Tourist Inflows: Evidence From Asia-Pacific Region

The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of major risks such as geopolitical and pandemic risks on tourism industry in selected countries of Asia-Pacific. The results were obtained using a sample of 10 neighboring countries in the period of 1996 to 2018. Diagnostic tests confirmed the existence of spatial interaction between model variables for these countries. According to the results, the economic growth, internally and in neighboring countries, leads to an increase in the influx of tourists. Whereas increased domestic prices will reduce the influx of domestic tourists, rising prices in neighboring countries intensify tourists’ arrival of the country. Furthermore, results reveal that domestic geopolitical and pandemic risks lead to a decrease in tourist arrivals. In addition, whereas pandemic risks in neighboring countries do not have a significant effect on tourist arrivals, geopolitical risks in neighboring countries lead to more domestic tourists’ arrival.

Tourism in Kashmir: Development and economic impact

Kashmir is one of the most famous tourist destinations of India in the Himalayas. The Valley is filled with assorted rich tourism resources. For the sustainable use of these tourism resources, a proper tourism policy is requisite. Subsequently, the present study aims to examine government policy for the growth and development of tourism in Kashmir region; besides, the assessment of tourism potentials and tourist flow in Kashmir is added endeavour of the study. According to the findings, ministry of tourism government of Jammu and Kashmir has framed a draft of tourism policy so far. The draft tourism policy constitutes developmental and promotional tactics for existing and new forms of tourism, abiding the sustainable tourism approach, development of human resource and tourism infrastructure, ensuring safety and security, and encouraging tourism education within the state. Moreover, the state government is working hard to promote eco-tourism and offbeat tourist destinations in collaboration with several other concerned bodies. Jammu and Kashmir State has a tremendous potential of becoming a major global tourist destination. Importance of tourism in J&K economy is known for decades now and its role in economic development has been an area of great interest from policy perspective. To understand the economic impact of tourism in the J&K state, present paper uses secondary sources of data and tries to examine various parameters of economic development such as tourist inflow, employment generation, State Gross Domestic Product, development of infrastructure and regional development. We found apart from agriculture sector, tourism sector is the most popular source of income and employment generation for the state economy.

Spatio-temporal assessment of COVID-19 lockdown impact on beach litter status and composition in Goa, India

The study aimed to understand beach litter status at some of the world-famous beaches of Goa, West India, to comprehend the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown. We characterize litter in six categories (Nylon+Rubber, Plastics, Footwear, Glass, Metal, and Thermocol) for eight sampled beaches in the north and south Goa. All beaches show increased glass and decreased plastics (significant litter) during the lockdown period compared to the unlock period that marked the high tourist inflow. Beaches were classified and graded with colour codes using litter density exhibit light blue-green colour coding during the lockdown or unlock period, suggests clean maintenance. The Miramar beach located in the heart of the capital city showed relatively more litter density (yellow code) due to the combination of local people and tourist inflow. Morjim, Palolem, Velsao were littered the least during both periods.

Current Evaluation on Generation, Storage, And Disposal of Solid Waste from Tourist Lodging Places in Mokokchung Town : A Case Study of Metsuben, Whispering Wind and Marvel Guest House

Rapid urbanization, population growth and changing consumption patterns in Mokokchung Town contribute significantly to the growing volumes of solid waste. The rate of tourist inflow in Mokokchung Town increases especially during the festive season owing to its culture, religion, history and aesthetic character of the town. Growth in the tourism industry along with ineffective solid waste management practises in the accommodation places and the town has resulted in increasing rates of solid waste production. The present study aims to analyse the inflow rate of tourists and to evaluate the current rate of generation, storage, and disposal of solid waste through empirical study. The study finds out that Mokokchung Town generates 14600 metric tons per year out of this, solid waste generated from tourist accommodation in town accounted for 4088 kg per year i.e., 4.08 Metric tons per year. The study suggests alternative storage and disposal options for tourist accommodation places.

Does the quality of health security of a country moderate the link between bilateral tourism flows and the COVID-19 death rate?

ABSTRACT This study investigates the link between tourist flows to and from China and the COVID-19 death rate. This includes the moderating influence of the quality of health security in the underlying relationship. Bilateral tourist flows data to and from China to 152 countries are used for the empirical analysis. The results show that tourist flows to and from China are associated with a higher COVID-19 death rate. This suggests that international tourism flow is one of the major conduits for the transmission of COVID-19 across borders, especially at the initial stage of the pandemic. Furthermore, the results show that countries with stronger health security capabilities are better at reducing COVID-19 death rates even when they attract a higher number of tourist inflows from China or when they register a higher number of tourist flows to China. Governments, especially in countries that are more globally connected through international tourism, should consider using some share of the economic stimulus funds to enhance health capabilities to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic as well as potential future pandemics.

Chinese Tourism: Irkutsk at a Glance

The article deals with the problems of Russian-Chinese cooperation in tourism area in Irkutsk. It considers specific examples that influenced the transformation of the appearance of the main streets and urban space of Irkutsk. The authors conclude that the inflow of tourists from China creates several opportunities and challenges for the regional center economy and space. The current situation with COVID-19 and the subsequent outflow of Chinese entrepreneurs can benefit the city’s tourism sector. So called “gray” (or partially legal) business, which is based on the economy of Chinese tourism, is fading into the background and the current situation gives the city and regional authorities an opportunity to take action to solve the problem.

Island Tourism-Based Sustainable Development at a Crossroads: Facing the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tourism is often seen as the ‘golden ticket’ for the development of many islands. The current COVID-19 pandemic, however, has ground global tourism to a halt. In particular, islands that depend heavily on tourist inflows—including mass-tourism islands, and small island developing states (SIDS)—have seen their revenues diminish significantly, and poverty rates increasing. Some alternative-tourism islands have fared better, as they have focused on providing personalized, nature-based experiences to mostly domestic tourists. This article focuses on the experiences of mass-tourism islands, SIDS, and alternative-tourism islands during the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers possible post-pandemic scenarios, as well as recommendations for sustainable island tourism development. Although the pandemic has largely had a negative impact on the tourism sector, this is a unique opportunity for many islands to review the paradigm of tourism development. In this newly emerging world, and under a still very uncertain future scenario, the quadriptych of sustainability is more important than ever. Responsible governance and management of islands’ natural resources and their tourism activities, addressing climate change impacts, the diversification of islands’ economies, and the promotion of innovative and personalized tourist experiences are all necessary steps towards increasing islands’ resilience in case of future economic downturn or health- and environment-related crises.

On the recursive relationship between gentrification and labour market precarisation: Evidence from two neighbourhoods in Athens, Greece

Gentrification and labour precarisation constitute prominent responses to urban capitalist crises. They have typically been addressed in the literature as distinct processes. Even though they can indeed occur independently of one another, here we argue that they are also often deeply interconnected. To do so, we utilise a mix of fieldwork and secondary data to investigate how gentrification has both fostered labour precarisation but also how it has been supported by it, within a context of economic recession yet growing tourist inflows into two neighbourhoods (Koukaki and Kerameikos) in central Athens, Greece. Our findings show that the growth of precarious labour in construction has facilitated the development of several gentrification loci whilst, in turn, gentrification’s consolidation has encouraged the growth of poor working conditions in local lodging, hospitality/catering, and creative activities. Ultimately, in highlighting the role of labour precarisation in gentrification, the paper argues that these processes are more than mere parts of an opportunistic conjuncture. Instead, their interconnectedness constitutes an integral part of the city’s contemporary urbanisation, being a continuation of the crisis-struck, construction-driven economic models that have historically characterised much of the Mediterranean European Union.

Airbnb and neighborhood crime: The incursion of tourists or the erosion of local social dynamics?

The proliferation of internet-based home-sharing platforms like Airbnb has raised heated debates, with many in the general public believing that the presence of Airbnb listings can lead to an increase in crime and disorder in residential neighborhoods. Despite the importance of this debate to residents, policymakers, and other stakeholders, few studies have examined the causal linkage between Airbnb listings and crime in neighborhoods. We conduct the first such empirical test in Boston neighborhoods, focusing on two potential mechanisms: (1) the inflow of tourists might generate or attract crime; and (2) the creation of transient properties undermines local social dynamics. Corresponding to these mechanisms, we examine whether the number of tourists (approximated with reviews) or the prevalence of listings predict more incidents of private conflict, social disorder, and violence both concurrently and in the following year. We find evidence that increases in Airbnb listings–but not reviews–led to more violence in neighborhoods in later years. This result supports the notion that the prevalence of Airbnb listings erodes the natural ability of a neighborhood to prevent crime, but does not support the interpretation that elevated numbers of tourists bring crime with them.

The Influence of Income and Currency Changes on Tourist Inflow to Norwegian Campsites: The Case of Swedish and German Visitors

There are few published articles on the demand for campsites, despite this being an important segment of the tourism industry. The purpose of this study was to gain further understanding of this topic. Using publicly available data over a period of 20 years, income and currency elasticity were estimated for German and Swedish camping tourists by using a natural logarithmic regression model with time series data. The results showed that both income and the exchange rate influenced the number of overnight stays, but the impact was rather small. The income elasticity for Swedish visitors was significant with a value of about 0.5, while it was zero and not significant for German camping tourists. Appreciation of the euro was associated with more visitors from Germany, but the estimated exchange rate elasticity was below 1.0 (and significant). A stronger Swedish currency relative to the Norwegian currency did not appear to have an effect. However, a stronger Swedish exchange rate, measured in euros, had a positive impact on Swedish camping visitors in Norway. The reason might be that more Swedish residents spend holidays abroad, and there is complementarity among the neighboring countries. Such calculations provide useful information for tourist industry planning.

Destination Marketing: Optimizing Resource Allocation Using Modern Portfolio Theory

Despite the significant contribution that tourism generates for national economic health, the tourism industry is challenged by seasonal and periodic volatility in arrivals. This volatility causes inefficiencies in the allocation of a destination’s resources. Policy makers and operators prefer a steady and constant inflow of tourists. Though prior studies have applied a portfolio optimization approach to inbound tourism flows, this study is the first to consider the destination’s marketing budget and each tourism markets’ heterogeneous marketing expenditure–demand elasticity. Our model provides destination marketing organizations with direct guidance as to how to allocate their marketing budget to facilitate portfolio profiles that are efficient from a risk-reward perspective, and that are attainable given budget constraints and known marketing expenditure–demand elasticity patterns. Using Tourism Research Australia International Visitor Survey data, we find that variability in tourism fluctuations can be reduced and inbound tourism numbers/spending significantly increased by implementing smarter (data-driven) marketing budget allocations.

The effects of moratoriums on hotel building: an anti-tourism measure, or rather protection for local incumbents?

ABSTRACT In July 2015, the newly elected City Council of Barcelona approved a moratorium on the building of hotels. This study empirically evaluates its effect on hotel prices, using 202,019 daily observations on hotel prices between 2011 and 2017. While the inflow of tourists continued to rise after the moratorium, our synthetic control method finds that hotel prices increased significantly above pre-intervention trends. This suggests that the actual outcome of the moratorium was the protection and promotion of the interests of local industry incumbents.

Modelling the International Tourist Arrivals in India

ABSTRACT Using the gravity model, this article investigates the determinants of tourist inflow to India. Several origin–destination (O-D) linked factors, such as Gross Domestic Product, Price index, Exchange Rate, Population, Distance, and Exports and Imports between India and its tourist origins, are explored. Using the panel dataset of 19 tourist originating countries to India from 2000 to 2018 the results of the study suggest that all the variables of the gravity model have statistically significant effects on tourist arrivals to India. In addition, we find tourism inflow to be highly price elastic. Additionally, we found a significant positive relationship between political stability and import ratio variable with tourism arrival. However, we found a significant negative relationship of export ratio with tourism arrival. The study findings provide initial ques to the policy makers and tourism industry players for developing strategies, policies, and regulations in line with increasing the inbound tourist flow to India.

“Insurrection is not a spectacle”: experiencing and contesting touristification in Exarcheia, Athens

ABSTRACT During the last few years, Athens is experiencing a substantial increase in tourist inflows, while transforming from a one-day stop destination during summer to a year-round, city-break destination. Through a multi-method qualitative research, this paper explores the role of the aforementioned developments in the emergence of Athens as a city-break destination and explores ongoing processes of touristification. The study focuses on the district of Exarcheia, where grassroots political activity and creativity co-exist in high densities. Due to the increased touristic traffic in the area, specific, often inter-related problematic conditions emerge concerning housing, residents’ everyday life and local businesses’ activity. At the same time, political groups and precarious creative professionals are facing substantial threats due to touristification. Building on the case of Exarcheia, this paper contributes to the ongoing discussion concerning touristification, highlighting its heavily context-dependent character to gentrification and the multiple ways social movements operate in tension with relevant processes.

High‐speed rail and city tourism: Evidence from Tencent migration big data on two Chinese golden weeks

AbstractThis paper estimates the effect of high‐speed rail (HSR) on city tourism. To identify the causal effect, we measure tourism outcomes with population flow data from Tencent migration big data and construct daily panel data of two national holidays from April 2015 to May 2019. Empirical results reveal that HSR connection increases the intercity tourist flows, which holds under a number of robustness checks. Such effect is greater in the Labor Day holiday than in the National Day holiday, and the impact on tourist outflow in the first‐half holiday is greater than that on tourist inflow. We also find that HSR connection increases the intensity that tourists travel by train. Our findings provide solid evidence on the contribution of transportation improvement to city tourism economy.

Factors Affecting International and National Tourist Arrivals (1974-2020) in Leh District (U.T. Ladakh, India)

Since 1974, tourists are attracted in Leh district for its mountainous landscape, environment, high altitude lakes, Indus River, beautiful villages and Himalayan people living in scenography valleys filled of Buddhist heritage sites. All makes this region a great place for adventure sports, sightseen, cultural and religious tourism. Tourism industry has rapidly become one of the most important aspects of District development paths. Visitors bring hard currency and spend money contributing to monetary economic boom that can have both positive and negative impacts on the society and territory. Tourism in Leh District has a short season (from May to October) but a highly profitable business especially with national visitors increasing by the day. This study, based on data collected from the Tourism Department in Leh, analyses the international and national tourist arrivals in time series to find out pattern and trends in the historical data and investigate global and local factors affecting tourist inflows (rises or falls) in the District. Yearly arrivals depends on several factors and issues as geopolitical and global economic problems, new trends in tourist destinations, film induced tourism, climate changes, natural disasters, pandemic and more. These unpredictable factors affect tourist flows, decreasing or increasing the arrivals even drastically. The long-term sustainability of the local development must not depend mainly on mass tourism because economic dependence on only one, although promising but fluctuating sector, pose several problems (e.g. impacts and pressure on infrastructures, environment and significant socio-cultural changes.

Tasting Tourism: a New Phase Towards Experiencing Indian Cuisine After the Pandemic

Since the evolution of mankind, the need for food and drink has been a major concern for humans. It has been reported from the ancient records that human had to cultivate and the store food for consumption but as time passed humans started to travel from one place to another in search of food and drink which further in the modern era gave rise to the tourism sector where people travel for one place to another to explore new culture and experience the local cuisine which depicts about the place and its community living around the region. Due to this, there was a tremendous increase in the percentage of tourists every year in different continents where they only travel for leisure and availing the local cuisine that included both food and the local beverage of the location. Therefore, the essence of food is also a vital part of the lifestyle for every individual and tourists who travel to the destination and try to experience the local cuisine. If you see the world, most of the tourists are eagerly mad at traveling to India, wherein every 100 meters you will get a varied cuisine influence which fascinates the international tourists towards the country's culinary inheritance. Therefore, the role of promotion and marketing of the regional cuisine of a country as it showcases the cultural identity of the nation's heritage. Henceforth, the paper explores the framework of the tasting tourism as to create a new phase of tourism after the Covid-19 in order to increase the tourism sector by introducing a new segment where the cuisine will showcase the opportunity for providing an extensive knowledge for the regional cuisine and beverages available, where they can experience during their travel to the region. But due to the pandemic situation, it has been seen that the Indian tourism sector had a drastic change as the inflow of foreign tourists decreased, and also the food business sector is facing downfall due to the rapid spread of the virus.
 Key words: Gastronomy; Tasting Tourism; Indian cuisine; Marketing; Promotion; Tourists.