Impact of multidimensional distances on inbound tourist arrivals: evidence from India

ABSTRACT

Despite the vital significance of the tourism sector for economic growth and employment generation in India as well as the growing popularity of India as a tourist destination, the literature examining the country-pair specific determinants for international tourism demand remains scarce. CAGE (Cultural-Administrative-Geographical-Economic) Distance framework by Ghemawat [(2001). Distance still matters. Harvard Business Review, 79(8), 137–147.] was employed in an augmented gravity model to examine the role of multidimensional distances from the source countries in determining international tourism inflows into India. The gravity model incorporates data for tourist arrivals to India from 54 source countries from 2004 to 2018. Results highlight that cultural distance, administrative distance and geographic distance significantly and negatively influence the tourist inflows while the influence of economic distance is significant and positive. The findings provide insights that aid the drafting of policies by the policymakers as well as the design and implementation of customized strategies by the businesses and service providers in the tourism industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Gravity model
• international tourism inflows
• India
• CAGE distance framework
• panel data

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).