Tourists
from USA, which is Greece's third major market after
European Union and Japan, represent 6% of international
tourist arrivals towards Greece in 2002. The average
annual growth rate of tourist arrivals from USA was
20% for the period 1960-2000. Despite the political,
economic and military crises, which were dominated
over the examined period, tourist arrivals to Greece
from USA have continued to grow slowly. Therefore,
it is essential to consider the economic factors influencing
this tourism demand.
The purpose of the paper is to estimate the elasticities
among origin country’s income, consumer prices
index of both countries and transportation cost of
inbound tourism from USA to Greece, exchange rate,
and prices of goods and services of a competitive
country using seasonally unadjusted quarterly data.
Given Turkey's proximity to Greece, it is also useful
to determine if Greece and Turkey are substitute or
complementary destinations using tourism demand models.
In addition, vector error correction models (VECM)
are examined in order to illustrate the seasonal effect
of tourism demand from USA towards Greece. |
