Impact of Migration on Tourism Flows: A Cross-sectional Analysis

Year 2023, Volume: 10 Issue: 1, 133 - 147, 10.06.2023

Kadir Karagöz

Abstract

Migration and tourism are the most important forms of human mobility. Migration makes important social and economic contributions to destination countries by culturally enriching their societies, enhancing tourism products, and providing labour for the travel, tourism, hospitality, and catering sectors. By acknowledging this fact, it can be expected that the increase in the immigrant stock in a country may affect the amounts of tourists coming to the country through various channels.
The expansion in global migrant stock and international tourist flows provides convincing evidence as to the existence of a significant relationship between the two phenomena. Nevertheless, it can be said that the subject has not been empirically searched sufficiently until recent times. This paper aims to contribute to the related literature empirically by testing the migration-led tourism hypothesis. Cross-sectional regression analysis findings based on a large sample indicate that there is a meaningful and positive relationship between migrant stock and tourist flows. On the other hand, control variables such as cultural heritage, democratization, political and social environment, income level, and human development level have also been found to influence tourism positively

Keywords

Migration-led tourism hypothesis, VFR tourism, cross-sectional regression, Migration-led tourism hypothesis, VFR tourism, cross-sectional regression

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