Socioeconomic Factors Driving International Travel Destination for Tourism

ABSTRACT

Commercial air transport growth and its technological evolution have played a pivotal role in facilitating increased people movement across nations. While numerous studies have examined the broader international travel demand evolution or specific patterns between locations, understanding the drivers that propel people towards different destinations is essential for both companies’ planning and the formulation of public policies. This study contributes to this endeavor by analyzing three crucial socioeconomic factors that shape our global reality: globalization, countries’ economic structure, and the dynamics within this structure. Through the utilization of panel data regression analysis methodology, the relationships between the evolution of international tourism and these socioeconomic factors are estimated and discussed. The findings highlight strong associations between each perspective analyzed and the historical demand for tourism, which provides valuable insights for developing strategies that harness the positive impacts of globalization, addressing regional disparities, and promoting sustainable tourism growth.

KEYWORDS:

• World tourism
• regional markets
• globalization
• socioeconomic indicators
• air transport

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Available at: https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators

2 See Table A.1 in the Annex for the full list of countries investigated.

3 Detailed results for the tests are presented in the Annex (Tables A.2 to A.6).

4 Detailed regressions results are presented in the Annex (Tables A.2 to A.6).

5 See Annex Table A.1 for the list of acronyms associated with the countries investigated.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences: [grant no BRI22/1215].