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Migration and Tourist Flows

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Tourism Economics

Abstract

Both immigration and tourism have increased significantly in recent decades. International migration in the world has increased from 154 million per year in 1990 to 175 million in 2000 (United Nation 2002). A common perception is that most migrants are moving from poor countries to rich countries, but in reality half of the migrations take place within the developing countries. One cause of this growth is the globalization process that enhanced mobility and improved accessibility to different places (Poot et al. 2008). In comparison, the growth in tourism was even stronger with 700 million worldwide tourist trips in 2000 as compared to 25 million in 1950 (Fischer 2007). The globalization process and the related tourism together spread further the information regarding economic prospects and tend to encourage people to move to places where they can find better economic opportunities. For example: prosperous places like London and Paris attract vast numbers of tourists, while some of these tourists become subsequently temporary or permanent migrants in the host country. So, tourism encourages migration. Conversely, migrants travel back to their home countries for short visits and their friends and relatives visit them in the host country. Therefore, migration boosts tourism. Thus, migration and tourism tend to become mutually interacting geographic phenomena whose importance is rapidly growing. Migration-related tourism seems to become an important segment of global tourism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more discussion on the definition of migration and tourism we refer to Hall and Williams (2000).

  2. 2.

    Most of these countries are OECD countries.

  3. 3.

    We do not use the UK population and GDP/capita in the outbound flows, because these variables remain constant across countries in our panel data (pooling of times series and cross-sectional). Therefore it is not possible to measure their coefficients in the fixed effect.

  4. 4.

    See Appendix 1 for inbound and Appendix 2 for outbound flows for the second equation results.

  5. 5.

    Adding dummy variables decreased degree of freedom and captured all other effects in the second equation. Therefore, GDP/capita and population are statistically insignificant in both directions.

  6. 6.

    The low outcomes for this elasticity in the second estimation means that part of the effect of migrant stock is already incorporated in the country dummy coefficients.

  7. 7.

    See Appendix 1 for inbound and Appendix 2 for outbound flows for the second equation results.

  8. 8.

    See Appendix 1 for inbound and Appendix 2 for outbound flows for the second equation results.

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Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Thomas de Graaff, Jacques Poot and Ferdinand Paraguas for their invaluable comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Spatial Economics, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Masood Gheasi, Peter Nijkamp & Piet Rietveld

Authors
  1. Masood Gheasi
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  2. Peter Nijkamp
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  3. Piet Rietveld
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masood Gheasi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Business, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, Rua da Junqueira 188-198, Lisboa, 1349-001, Portugal

    Álvaro Matias

  2. Faculty of Economics, and Business Administration, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, Netherlands

    Peter Nijkamp

  3. School of Economics and Business, Head of the Tourism Department, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, Rua da Junqueira 188-198, Lisboa, 1349-001, Portugal

    Manuela Sarmento

Appendices

Sweden is the base country and 2001 is the base year in inbound flows.

Appendix 1: Complete Report of (8.2) for Inbound Flows

Sweden is the base country and 2001 is the base year in inbound flows.

 

VFR visit

Duration of VFR

Total visit

Constant

4.248 (0.96)

6.834 (1.08)

7.975 (1.39)

Pop

0.011 (0.10)

−0.069 (−0.44)

−0.023 (−0.16)

Migrant stock

0.368 (2.88)**

0.429 (2.33)***

0.300 (2.08)***

GDP/capita

−0.161 (−0.38)

−0.201 (−0.33)

−0.362 (−0.65)

Dum02

−0.115 (−1.12)

−0.204 (−1.37)

−0.083 (−0.63)

Dum03

0.170 (1.09)

0.122 (0.55)

0.252 (1.27)

Dum04

0.260 (1.29)

0.237 (0.82)

0.398 (1.55)

Dum05

0.335 (1.47)

0.282 (0.86)

0.529 (1.81)***

Dum06

0.425 (1.71)***

0.373 (1.04)

0.607 (1.89)***

Australia

−0.161 (−0.38)

2.618 (7.84)*

0.784 (2.56)***

Belgium

1.274 (5.49)*

1.181 (3.37)*

1.350 (4.43)*

Canada

1.195 (4.91)*

2.751 (6.81)*

1.042 (2.84)**

China

−0.559 (−0.39)

1.544 (0.74)

−1.364 (−0.74)

Denmark

0.958 (2.98)*

1.355 (2.93)*

1.044 (2.70)**

Finland

0.109 (0.23)

0.757 (1.12)

0.253 (0.46)

France

2.141 (8.60)*

2.432 (6.78)*

2.221 (6.73)*

Germany

2.002 (6.66)*

2.526 (5.84)*

2.155 (5.41)*

Greece

0.450 (1.16)

1.280 (2.29)***

−0.067 (−0.13)

India

0.152 (0.09)

2.143 (0.83)

−0.731 (−0.32)

Ireland

2.305 (8.47)*

2.293 (5.85)*

2.316 (6.84)*

Italy

0.886 (3.04)*

1.551 (3.70)*

1.248 (3.24)*

Japan

−0.057 (−0.11)

1.028 (1.34)

0.659 (0.99)

Luxembourg

−1.362 (−0.80)

−1.369 (−0.56)

−3.712 (−1.66)***

Netherlands

1.689 (7.91)*

1.859 (6.05)*

1.804 (6.53)*

New Zealand

−0.149 (−0.50)

1.701 (3.94)*

−0.603 (−1.53)

Pakistan

0.418 (0.24)

2.658 (1.06)

−1.191 (−0.53)

Poland

0.831 (1.10)

1.768 (1.62)

−0.124 (−0.13)

Portugal

−0.668 (−1.68)***

0.133 (0.23)

−0.821 (−1.59)

South Africa

−0.054 (−0.06)

1.571 (1.14)

−0.296 (−0.24)

Spain

1.392 (4.30)*

2.210 (4.74)*

0.905 (2.14)***

Turkey

−0.320 (−0.38)

1.223 (1.00)

0.931 (0.84)

USA

2.174 (5.10)*

3.137 (5.11)*

2.423 (4.29)*

R2

0.95

0.92

0.93

Obs

131

131

136

  1. T-statistics are in parentheses
  2. *Significant at 1%
  3. **Significant at 5%
  4. ***Significant at 10%

Appendix 2: Complete Report of (8.2) for Outbound Flows

Sweden is the base country and 2001 is the base year in outbound flows.

 

VFR visit

Duration of VFR

Total visit

Constant

2.791 (1.42)

1.938 (0.51)

5.906 (4.59)*

Pop

0.098 (0.83)

0.258 (1.13)

−0.013 (−0.17)

Migrant stock

0.370 (3.28)*

0.261 (1.19)

0.069 (0.93)

GDP/capita

0.005 (0.05)

0.207 (1.09)

−0.042 (−0.64)

Dum02

−0.054 (−0.93)

−0.135 (−1.20)

0.028 (0.74)

Dum03

0.023 (0.37)

−0.249 (−2.02)***

0.075 (1.79)***

Dum04

0.068 (0.93)

−0.255 (−1.81)***

0.118 (2.46)***

Dum05

0.126 (1.79)***

−0.160 (−1.18)

0.160 (3.50)*

Dum06

0.207 (2.56)***

−0.047 (−0.30)

0.191 (3.62)*

Australia

−0.942 (−1.91)***

0.761 (0.80)

0.268 (0.83)

Belgium

0.237 (2.07)***

−0.279 (−1.26)

1.723 (23.04)*

Czch Rep

−0.022 (−0.07)

0.396 (0.60)

0.973 (4.39)*

Denmark

−0.179 (−1.68)***

−0.327 (−1.59)

−0.124 (−1.78)***

Finland

−0.701 (−3.21)*

−0.501 (−1.19)

−0.677 (−4.74)*

Germany

0.646 (1.98)***

0.385 (0.61)

1.821 (8.53)*

Greece

0.227 (1.56)

0.898 (3.21)*

2.253 (23.81)*

Hungary

0.134 (0.39)

0.290 (0.43)

0.049 (0.21)

Italy

0.797 (3.62)*

0.656 (1.54)

2.164 (15.06)*

Japan

−1.416 (−4.76)*

−0.546 (−0.95)

−1.276 (−6.56)*

Luxembourg

−1.736 (−5.47)*

−1.693 (−2.76)**

−1.388 (−6.69)*

Netherlands

0.598 (3.71)*

0.227 (0.73)

1.833 (17.42)*

Norway

−0.446 (−3.44)*

−0.386 (−1.54)

0.041 (0.48)

Portugal

0.027 (0.23)

0.508 (2.22)***

1.739 (22.48)*

Spain

0.778 (2.40)***

1.060 (1.69)***

3.639 (17.18)*

Switzerland

0.140 (1.22)

−0.051 (−0.23)

1.102 (14.64)*

USA

−0.015 (−0.03)

0.462 (0.42)

2.343 (6.25)*

R2

0.98

0.95

0.99

Obs

99

99

99

  1. T-statistics are in parentheses
  2. *Significant at 1%
  3. **Significant at 5%
  4. ***Significant at 10%

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Gheasi, M., Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P. (2011). Migration and Tourist Flows. In: Matias, Á., Nijkamp, P., Sarmento, M. (eds) Tourism Economics. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2725-5_8

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