The determinants of tourism demand in Central Asia

Zusammenfassung

The tourism industry has become one of the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors in developing and developed countries. The growing number of new destinations creates a competitive, complex tourism market that needs to explore the determinants of tourism demand through big data accurately. However, a considerable obstacle still exists to analyze tourism determinants in challenging and unstudied areas such as Central Asia. Thus, the present doctoral dissertation investigates the impact of a wide range of determinants, including economic and non-economic factors, on tourism demand in Central Asia from a global scale considering Asia in both the country of origin and destination. Economic and non-economic factors comprise a series of data related to economic, social, cultural, geographical, environmental and governance indicators. In addition, the doctoral dissertation would shed new light on tourism development, destination management and tourism literature. Implementing the overall objective of the doctoral thesis has been built up in a conventional way that has opened up and invested in the series of efficient policy recommendations for improving regional tourism development. The dissertation entails examining the nature of tourism determinants in Central Asia based on both global and regional perspectives. The objectives are explained in the following steps. The general objective of the doctoral dissertation is to identify the relevant factors from different disciplines such as cultural, economic, geographic, climate, governance and sustainability so as to estimate their influence on tourism demand from a global scale (Asia) to a specific region (Central Asia) and countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan). First, we draw our attention to examining the economic and non-economic determinants of inbound tourism to Asia globally. The determinant of tourism is a broad and complex concept and includes economic, cultural, social, environmental, and political factors. We have set three-dimensional panel data (origin, destination and year) with an amplified number of observations, centring on 46 Asian countries of destination and 197 countries of origin from 1995 to 2016. Second, the dissertation draws our attention to the investigation of tourism demand in the emerging region of Asia. In this case, Central Asia is selected as the region of study. As the region on the path of the Great Silk Road, Central Asia consists of five emerging countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Specifically, It analyzes the role of governance quality (e.g., political stability, government effectiveness, the rule of law, regulatory quality, control of corruption and voice and accountability) in the number of international tourist arrivals to Central Asia from 108 countries for the period of 2008-2018. Third, we have focused on three integrated and complex studies in the case of Kazakhstan, such as the impact of climate on tourism demand, the role of tourism in sustainable development, and the analysis of the use of information communication technology in tourism. First, it conducts an empirical analysis of how climate change impacts the number of tourist arrivals to Kazakhstan from 121 countries of origin from 2000 to 2018. International tourists visiting Kazakhstan have a different choice of preferable temperature. Extreme, moderate, and optimal temperatures cause a considerable change in tourist flows to Kazakhstan since ski-resort is one of the leading tourism activities in this destination. Second, it measures the current state of the digital technology application in the tourism industry and identifies the limitations and problems associated with their implementation in the case of Kazakhstan from 2000 to 2018. Third, it analyzes the relationship between tourism development, quality of life and economic growth and determines the directions of the relationships between them. Fourth, it presents the final part of the doctoral dissertation, including the overall summary of obtained outcomes and their contributions to the knowledge and the practical and policy implications for tourism stakeholders.