WHY TRY TO CRASH THE PARTY?

Back to Page Authors: Ismail H. Genc, M. Sajed Khan, Prakash Chathoth

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Keywords: International tourism, Game theoric modeling of tourism, Country brand value, Econometric analysis

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Abstract: Data on tourist arrivals show that traveling public do not prefer to visit tourist welcoming (measured by an index) countries. Instead, they go to rich (and potentially unwelcoming) countries. We explain this observation by referring to the expected utility of decision makers (tourists) under different scenarios including the associated cost of actions taken/goods purchased. When faced with two choices, attractive country vs unattractive country to visit, potential international tourist chooses the attractive one, which is likely the richer one. With the help of a simple game theoric model, we illustrate a case to rationalize the theoretical explanation. Potential tourists are not necessarily swayed away by the offer of easy access to a particular country, which is considered unattractive. We also empirically test our model by using international tourist arrivals aggregated over 1995 and 2016. Our explanatory variables are per capita real GDP, real effective exchange rate, an index representing how welcoming a country is, and an index representing how free a country is. We replicate our model by a direct measure of worthiness of a country in the international stage, which is the country brand value. Our findings are that potential tourists would prefer to go to countries that they consider worthy of visit even if it is more difficult to gain access to these countries due to visa and other types of restrictions.

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