Modelling international tourism flows to China: A panel data analysis with the gravity model

Lizhi Xu, Shouyang Wang, Jingjing Li, Ling Tang and Yanmin Shao
Additional contact information
Lizhi Xu: Beijing Union University, China
Shouyang Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Jingjing Li: Beihang University, China
Ling Tang: Beihang University, China
Yanmin Shao: University of Science and Technology Beijing, China

Tourism Economics, 2019, vol. 25, issue 7, 1047-1069

Abstract: Based on the theoretical and empirical foundations of the gravity model, this article systematically investigates the determinants of international tourist arrivals to China. Various origin–destination (O-D) linked factors accounting for the economic, political and social/culture preferences between China and its tourist origins are particularly explored. Utilizing a panel data set of tourist arrivals to China from 21 countries from 1995 to 2014, the results suggest that the basic gravity determinants all have significant effects on tourist arrivals to China. Furthermore, four O-D linked factors are found to be significant in explaining the number of international tourists and have a greater tourist-enhancing effect. In particular, overseas Chinese, proxying for social/culture-preferential relationships, have caused significant increases in tourism arrivals to China of approximately 120% when the percentage of ethnic Chinese in the origin countries’ population is more than 1%. For China to be chosen as a manufacturing and processing centre by international enterprises, various O-D relationships are important but neglected factors of Chinese tourism patterns, with important policy implications.

Keywords: China’s international tourism; gravity model; panel data; tourism demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354816618816167 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:toueco:v:25:y:2019:i:7:p:1047-1069

DOI: 10.1177/1354816618816167

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Tourism Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().