Tourism Growth as a Driver of Migration Patterns: Evidence From Croatia

Abstract

Purpose – This research investigates to what extent local economic growth driven by tourism was able to prevent emigration from local areas. The relative economic prosperity of the Western Member States is considered to have had a large pull effect on immigrants following the enlargement of the EU to Central and Eastern European states. A similar pattern has been established in Croatia, where a mass exodus of the population has been recorded in the years following the 2013 EU Accession. Methodology – To do so, we use the newly released Population Census data from 2021, along with data from the earlier Census, to create a panel dataset of all municipalities and cities in Croatia and estimate the role of tourism. These data sources overcome the measurement errors in previously available annual migration data from the Ministry of Interior and allow for a more disaggregated analysis using detailed variables on the age and sex profile of citizens. We estimate a linear regression model using Ordinary Least Squares with the difference in population change as the dependent variable and measures of tourism development as the independent variable. Findings – We find evidence that the size of tourism is negatively associated with the size of emigration from the local area. We then investigate the mechanisms behind the relationship between local tourism growth and emigration, testing whether tourism is more correlated with emigration of younger or older individuals, men or women. Contribution – This paper is the first to shed light into the empirical nexus between tourism growth as the cause of the retention of population. Policy wise, it gives important insights into understanding how economic opportunities are key for individuals’ decision to emigrate that could be relevant for policymakers interested in ways to retain local populations. Finally, methodologically, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first research to explore migration patterns using the 2021 Census.