Impacts of regional conflicts on tourism in Africa and the Middle East: a spatial panel data approach

Abstract

The present study explores the impacts of regional conflicts on tourism in the Middle East and African countries. The adopted dataset covers 2001-2017 and examines the effects of such conflicts and the resulting risks on the tourism industry for thirty-nine countries. Diagnostic tests confirmed and the spatial Durbin model selected as the estimation model. According to the results, economic growth in the origin country and in neighbouring countries increases domestic tourists in number. The results showed conflicting spillover of domestic and foreign prices in the impacts of relative prices on the arrival of tourists. Rising prices in neighbouring countries lead to more domestic tourists, while higher domestic prices were revealed to be an indicator of developed tourism structures and more tourists. Trade openness was not found to have a significant effect on the arrival of tourists. Also, the results demonstrate that countries with higher levels of conflict experience lower rates of tourist arrival. In addition, according to the results, managing the political risk of countries and reducing conflicts over time cannot significantly improve the arrival of tourists, in the short run. It is observed that political risks for tourists form in a long-term context, and its alteration requires time.

Is terrorism a spoilsport for the sustainability of economic development?: evidence from the economic community of West African states

“…The results reveal that the impact of terrorism on FDI and domestic investment is significantly negative, whereas the impact on government spending is significantly positive and the net effect of terrorism on economic growth is negative. The studies of Karimi et al (2022) and Ilarslan and Yildiz (2022) lead to the same results. Abid and Sekrafi (2020) analyzed the impact of terrorism on public debt in African countries.…”

High regional economic activity repels domestic tourism during summer of pandemic

“…Accounting for spatial effects is common in analysis of regional travel flows (Alvarez-Diaz et al, 2020; Majewska, 2015;Romão & Nijkamp, 2019;Yang & Fik, 2014). The spatial Durbin model (SDM) is regularly used for analyses of regional tourism flows (Karimi et al, 2021;Yang & Fik, 2014), even if LeSage (2014) recommends the spatial Durbin error model (SDEM) in cases where the possible regional spillover effects are of particular interest. In other words, the LeSage procedure selects the SDEM over the SDM.…”

Assessing Risks in Cross-Regional Tourism Corridors: A Case Study of Tibetan Plateau Tourism

“…In addition, the 1990s saw a surge in research on tourism risk, with studies predominantly focusing on the impact of natural disasters [11][12][13], climate change [14][15][16], regional conflicts [17,18], geopolitics [19,20], terrorism [21][22][23][24], and epidemics [25,26] on the tourism industry. Additionally, research has delved into tourism crises [27,28] and risk management in tourism [29,30].…”