Empirical Testing of Convergence Hypothesis of International Tourism Sector

Abstract

The importance of the tourism sector has been increasing over the last 20 years across the world, since it makes a contribution, enabling developing countries converge developed countries economically. The aim of this study is to analyze whether or not there is any convergence between top ten countries, listed by World Tourism Organization, which have the largest volume of visitor arrivals, Turkey being one of these countries. To test the convergence hypothesis, the authors of the current research have generated a 15-year panel data set to apply panel unit root analysis for the period of 1995 through 2009. The results show that the convergence is justified regarding a joint unit root process. For the individual unit root process, however, it is justified only among France,

Segmenting global tourism markets: A panel club convergence approach

“…Yilanci and Eris (2012) employed data between 1996 and 2010 and their results indicated that the hypothesis of convergence was generally supported (10 out of 14 markets). Bahar et al (2013) also employed data of similar period (i.e., 1995-2009) and their findings suggest that convergence can be justified when utilizing a joint unit root process. Ozcan and Erdogan (2017) used monthly data over the period from 1996 to 2012 and confirm that most of the markets are converging.…”

“…Abbott et al, 2012;Solarin, 2014;Yilanci & Eris, 2012), or sigma and beta convergence methods (Lin & Deng, 2018). The study by Abbott et al (2012) is among the five studies that have investigated Turkey's tourism markets which include Bahar et al (2013), Hepsag (2015), Ozcan and Erdogan (2017) and Yilanci and Eris (2012). Abbott et al (2012) used monthly data covering the similar period (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009) of Turkey's source markets, but found no evidence to support the convergence hypotheses in the long run.…”

“…For example, all the above mentioned five studies are based on stationary or unit root tests where results are obtained for an individual country or a pair of countries. The only exception is Bahar et al (2013) where the panel unit root test analysis is employed. However, such method either reject or accept the null unit root jointly for the whole panel without a mechanism to investigate sub-convergence groups within the panel.…”

“…In addition, many of the previous tourism market convergence studies rely on a small number of source markets included in the sample, which limits the scope of the analysis (Song et al, 2012). The maximum sample size of the sources in the Turkish studies is 20 (Abbott et al, 2012;Hepsag, 2015) and the minimum one is 10 ( Bahar et al, 2013).…”

“…In this study, we select Turkey's global tourism markets over an extended period of 2001-2015 for analysis, because despite being one of the most researched contexts for tourism market convergence studies, the structure of tourism source markets for Turkey is not clearly understood (Abbott, De Vita, & Altinay, 2012;Bahar, Dogan, & Bozkurt, 2013;Hepsag, 2015;Ozcan & Erdogan, 2017;Yilanci & Eris, 2012). For instance, while Bahar Bahar et al (2013); Ozcan and Erdogan (2017); and Yilanci and Eris (2012) find convergence for some countries in their sample, Abbott et al (2012) find no such evidence. Hepsag (2015) observes convergence exist only in some of the months of the year but not others.…”