Nexus of Terrorism and Tourism: Empirical evidence from South Asian Countries

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the deleterious role ofterrorism towards tourism, this study analyzed time series data over the period 1980-2016 for South Asian countries including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted the Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) model to investigate the short and long-run estimates simultaneously. The study further applied Granger causality to find out the direction ofcausalities. Findings: Utilizing the ARDL model, the result indicates that there is strong negative short and long-run relationship between terrorism and tourism in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The unidirectional causalities from terrorism, per capita GDP, and terrorism intensity towards tourist's receipts have their implication for the country in terms oftourism development. Research limitations/implications: The fact that the number of reviews has been used as a proxy is a limitation and adds a provisional character to our results and encourages the replication of our analysis with data on the effective occupation of the accommodation, to which we did not have access to in our case. Similarly, if possible, other smaller Latin American cities could be studied. Research implications: In the perspective of policy implementation, the govemment of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh must take quick actions to control terrorism since it is destructive to the tourism industry as well as in light of its negative effect on economic development of a country. Moreover, the govemment should expand the business and employment opportunities not just in light of the fact that unemployment is harmful to economic growth yet additionally to spare the economy from terrorism as unemployed people can easily become the puppets of terrorist groups by paying them and to feed their families. Originality/value: This study utilized time series data over a period 1980-2016 for South Asian countries (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) to investigate the deleterious role ofterrorism towards tourism.