Investigation of the Destination Resilience of Turkey: New Insights from Convergence Hypothesis

Abstract

This study focuses on the context of diversified challenges Turkey’s tourism industry faces. This study aims to test the validity of the convergence hypothesis from the perspective of destination flexibility by separating the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods in Turkey’s 15 top tourist-producing countries. The data collected from the period 2001:1 to 2019:12 for pre-pandemic period and 2022:1 to 2023:8 for the post-pandemic period are tested by performing Hepsag’s stationarity test state that the convergence hypothesis is valid in 14 of the 15 major tourism markets for the pre-pandemic period (the Russian Federation, Germany, Bulgaria, England, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Poland, France, Greece, Romania, Israel and Saudi Arabia). However, for the post-pandemic period, it was determined that the convergence hypothesis was valid only for Iraq, Poland, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Examining the convergence features of tourism markets provides valuable information for decision-makers of Turkey’s tourism policies for economic balance in the growing cities.