Examining the link between terrorism and tourism demand: the case of Egypt

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Abstract

The current study explores the link between tourist demand and terrorism in Egypt using monthly data for the period from 1995 to 2018. We aim to investigate whether this relationship is unidirectional of bidirectional and whether it exhibits persistence in the long run. Terrorism is proxied by performing principal component analysis on the number of terrorist incidents and the number of resulting deaths and injuries. We test for cointegration employing a Vector Autoregressive Model with Error Correction. We find evidence of a long-term cointegrating relationship between tourism and terrorism. Our empirical results show that the direction of this causal relationship is from terrorism to tourism only, meaning that policymakers should not expect a rise in terrorist activity during periods of increased tourist arrivals. Our findings indicate that authorities should enforce strict measures against terrorism in order to promote safety and security within the tourism context.

ISSN

1940-7963

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Disciplines

Tourism and Travel

Keywords

Egypt, Principal Component Analysis, terrorism, Tourism, tourist arrivals, Vector Autoregressive Model

Scopus ID

85103215231

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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