Factors affecting international tourism flows to Turkey: a gravity model approach

A gravity-based modelling effort is undertaken to analyse the factors affecting the numbers of international tourists visiting Turkey from the top 11 originating countries for 1995-2005. It is found that an eight-factor model (GDP per capita, tourism climate index, Population of the originating country, tourism price index, distance, earthquake, neighbouring country, September 11 terrorist attacks) can explain most of the data. The usual negative distance effect and the tourism climate index are found to be the most important indicators of the magnitude of tourism flows. An unexpected finding, however, is the relative insignificance of the Iraq War dummy