Explaining Tourism Inflows in Greece: A Macroeconometric Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of tourism inflows to Greece. The significance of the specific sector for the Greek economy varies from 15% to 20% of GDP (measured directly or indirectly respectively). Building on the existing literature, panel data estimation techniques are used, with explanatory variables including selected macroeconomic indicators and (relative) price indices. The main innovation of the paper is that, regarding the cross section dimension of the sample, disaggregated data based on the country (or area) of origin are used, combined with the corresponding macroeconomic aggregates. The time-span of the data is the 2004-2010 period, with the specific econometric techniques used taking into account both the statistical properties of variables and the differences between the various cross sections. The main conclusion of the paper is that the macroeconometric approach to explaining tourist arrivals provides a very satisfactory model fit, with explanatory variables explaining a significant part of the variability of the dependent variable.