What Are The Determinants Of Chinese Total Outbound Tourism To International Destinations?

This study investigates the determinants of Chinese outbound tourism to 73 countries from year 2000 to 2014.I estimate a panel data model with fixed effects.The aim is to understand the major variables that explains Chinese outbound tourism.The dependent variable is total outbound tourism while the explanatory variables include GDP growth rate of China,lagged GDP growth of destination countries,flight distance from China to destination countries,population of destination countries,lagged exchange rate,export of China to destination countries,number of cultural heritage sites,sister countries dummy,political stability,and number of cities in destination countries,accessible by direct flights from China.An interaction of distance with the development of destination countries is also included.The result reveal that export of China to destination countries,cultural heritage,political stability and exchange rate are significant determinants of Chinese total outbound tourism.I further illustrate that conditional on a country being developed,an increase of distance will result in total outbound tourism by 0.075%.Furthermore,access to direct flights is positively associated with total outbound tourism,but it is only significant when destination fixed effects are taken into consideration.These findings may help design and implement policies to promote tourism.