Religion, Religious Diversity and Tourism

Johan Fourie, Jaume Roselló (jrosello@iub.es) and Maria Santana-Gallego (maria.santana@iub.es)
Additional contact information
Jaume Roselló: Department of Applied Economics, University Of The Balearic Islands
Maria Santana-Gallego: Department of Applied Economics, University Of The Balearic Islands
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Maria Santana Gallego (maria.santana@uib.es)

No 09/2014, Working Papers from Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Religious beliefs influence many aspects of peoples’ daily lives, so it is plausible to argue that religion affects some of humanity’s most central endeavors, such as trade, migration, foreign investment and tourism. This paper investigates the role a country’s religious affiliation plays in destination choice for international tourism. To that end, a gravity model for international tourist arrivals is estimated by using a dataset of 164 countries for the period 1995-2010. Results provide evidence that religious similarity has significant explanatory power in global tourism flows even after controlling for other measures of cultural affinity. Moreover, the presence of common religious minorities in the country has a positive impact on tourism flows. However, although religious pluralism foster tourism flows between countries, religious similarity has a stronger positive effect.

Keywords: religion; tourism demand; gravity model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 L83 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig and nep-tur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.ekon.sun.ac.za/wpapers/2014/wp092014/wp-09-2014.pdf First version, 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Religion, Religious Diversity and Tourism (2015)
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