Modeling tourism and fear nexus in G4 countries

In this paper, we examine whether there is a causal relationship between migration-related fear and tourism. To achieve the objective, a lag-augmented vector autoregressive (LA-VAR) model that generates country-specific causality test results is employed. The period covered extends from 1995Q1 to 2016Q4. To control for omitted variable bias, we include real gross domestic product per capita as an additional variable. Empirical results provide evidence of one-way causality running from migration-related fear to tourism, and neutrality hypothesis is confirmed in the relationship between migration-related fear and economic growth, and between tourism and economic growth. Although the study confirms the fear-induced tourism hypothesis, it however further submits that other determinants such as exchange rates and real gross domestic product are much more important than fear in determining the number of arrivals at a destination.