IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04301932.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is international tourism responsible for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic? A cross-country analysis with a special focus on small islands

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-François Hoarau

    (CEMOI - Centre d'Économie et de Management de l'Océan Indien - UR - Université de La Réunion)

Abstract

This article aims at analysing the role of international tourism attractiveness as a potential factor for the outbreak and the early spread of the recent COVID-19 disease across the world (also called the first wave) with a special focus on small Island economies. Econometric testing is implemented over a crosscountry sample including 205 countries/territories (with 59 small islands) after controlling for several usual suspects. The results state a positive and significant relationship between COVID-19 prevalence and inbound tourism arrivals per capita. Thus in the early stages of the spread (before travel restrictions), international tourism could be seen as one of the main responsible factors for the recent pandemic, validating the "tourism-led vulnerability hypothesis". Accordingly, considering that such health shocks should be more frequent in the near future, this finding suggests that the tourism specialization model in the context of small islands is too vulnerable to be considered as sustainable in the medium and long-run. Policymakers must opt for economic diversification when possible. Otherwise, building up a strong public-health system alongside a specialized tourism sector is required.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-François Hoarau, 2021. "Is international tourism responsible for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic? A cross-country analysis with a special focus on small islands," Post-Print hal-04301932, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04301932
    DOI: 10.1007/s10290-021-00438-x
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-04301932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-04301932/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10290-021-00438-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geoffrey Bertram & Bernard Poirine, 2007. "Island political economy," Post-Print hal-00974441, HAL.
    2. Patrick Guillaumont, 2010. "Assessing the Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries," Post-Print hal-00594797, HAL.
    3. Rinaldo Brau & Adriana Di Liberto & Francesco Pigliaru, 2011. "Tourism and Development: A Recent Phenomenon Built on Old (Institutional) Roots?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 444-472, March.
    4. Patrick Guillaumont, 2010. "Assessing the Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Developing States and the Least Developed Countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(5), pages 828-854.
    5. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Jean-François Hoarau, 2019. "How resilient is La Réunion in terms of international tourism attractiveness: an assessment from unit root tests with structural breaks from 1981-2015," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(24), pages 2639-2653, May.
    6. Manfred Lenzen & Ya-Yen Sun & Futu Faturay & Yuan-Peng Ting & Arne Geschke & Arunima Malik, 2018. "The carbon footprint of global tourism," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(6), pages 522-528, June.
    7. Mathilde Closset & Sosso Feindouno & Patrick Guillaumont & Catherine Simonet, 2017. "A Physical Vulnerability to Climate Change Index: Which are the most vulnerable developing countries?," Post-Print hal-01719925, HAL.
    8. Michaël Goujon & Jean-François Hoarau, 2020. "Les îles touristiques à la merci du changement climatique : une évaluation par un indice synthétique de vulnérabilité physique," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 28(1), pages 69-106.
    9. Alan Siu & Y. C. Richard Wong, 2004. "Economic Impact of SARS: The Case of Hong Kong," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 62-83.
    10. Yang, Yang & Zhang, Hongru & Chen, Xiang, 2020. "Coronavirus pandemic and tourism: Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modeling of infectious disease outbreak," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. Pratt, Stephen, 2015. "The economic impact of tourism in SIDS," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 148-160.
    12. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Jean-François Hoarau, 2019. "How resilient is La Réunion in terms of international tourism attractiveness: an assessment from unit root tests with structural breaks from 1981-2015," Post-Print hal-02015103, HAL.
    13. Patrick Guillaumont, 2010. "Assessing the Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Developing States and the Least Developed Countries," Post-Print halshs-00512159, HAL.
    14. Patrick Guillaumont, 2010. "Assessing the Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Developing States and the Least Developed Countries," Post-Print hal-00488679, HAL.
    15. Juan Gabriel Brida & Isabel Cortes-Jimenez & Manuela Pulina, 2016. "Has the tourism-led growth hypothesis been validated? A literature review," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 394-430, April.
    16. Claire Goavec & Jean-François Hoarau, 2015. "Structural economic vulnerability and tourism dependence: new assessment for small island developing economies [Vulnérabilité économique structurelle et dépendance touristique : quels enseignements," Post-Print hal-01454720, HAL.
    17. Manfred Lenzen & Ya-Yen Sun & Futu Faturay & Yuan-Peng Ting & Arne Geschke & Arunima Malik, 2018. "Author Correction: The carbon footprint of global tourism," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(6), pages 544-544, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cláudia Seabra & Ketan Bhatt, 2022. "Tourism Sustainability and COVID-19 Pandemic: Is There a Positive Side?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-François Hoarau, 2020. "Is international tourism responsible for the pandemic of COVID-19? A preliminary cross-country analysis with a special focus on small islands," TEPP Working Paper 2020-04, TEPP.
    2. Jean-François Hoarau, 2020. "Is international tourism responsible for the pandemic of COVID-19? A very preliminary assessment with a special focus on small islands," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2395-2407.
    3. Claire Goavec & Jean-François Hoarau, 2015. "Structural economic vulnerability and tourism dependence: new assessment for small island developing economies [Vulnérabilité économique structurelle et dépendance touristique : quels enseignements," Post-Print hal-01454720, HAL.
    4. Jean-François Hoarau & Nicolas Lucic, 2022. "Are real merchandise imports per capita a good predictor for the standard of living for the small island world: Testing for the imports-led growth and the growth-led imports hypotheses in panels over ," TEPP Working Paper 2022-16, TEPP.
    5. Claire GOAVEC & Jean-François HOARAU, 2015. "Vulnérabilité Économique Structurelle Et Dépendance Touristique : Quels Enseignements Pour Les Petites Économies Insulaires En Développement," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 42, pages 157-188.
    6. Thalis P. V. Zis & Harilaos N. Psaraftis, 2022. "Impacts of short-term measures to decarbonize maritime transport on perishable cargoes," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 24(3), pages 602-629, September.
    7. Zouhair Aït Benhamou & Lesly Cassin, 2018. "The effects of migration and remittances on development and capital in Caribbean Small Island Developing States," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-41, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    8. Angelucci, Federica & Conforti, Piero, 2010. "Risk management and finance along value chains of Small Island Developing States. Evidence from the Caribbean and the Pacific," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 565-575, December.
    9. Patrick GUILLAUMONT, 2014. "Measuring Structural Economic Vulnerability in Africa," Working Papers P97, FERDI.
    10. Montalbano, Pierluigi, 2011. "Trade Openness and Developing Countries' Vulnerability: Concepts, Misconceptions, and Directions for Research," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1489-1502, September.
    11. Christos A. Kontovas & Krishna Sooprayen, 2020. "Maritime Cargo Prioritisation during a Prolonged Pandemic Lockdown Using an Integrated TOPSIS-Knapsack Technique: A Case Study on Small Island Developing States—The Rodrigues Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-20, September.
    12. Liu, Yang & Dong, Kangyin & Jiang, Qingzhe, 2023. "Assessing energy vulnerability and its impact on carbon emissions: A global case," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    13. Hosein, Roger & Satnarine-Singh, Nirvana & Saridakis, George, 2022. "The Spillover Effect of Exports: An Analysis of Caribbean SIDs," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 75(1), pages 1-28.
    14. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2022. "Effect of structural economic vulnerability on the participation in international trade," EconStor Preprints 262004, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Blancard, Stéphane & Hoarau, Jean-François, 2013. "A new sustainable human development indicator for small island developing states: A reappraisal from data envelopment analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 623-635.
    16. Luis Hernando Portillo-Riascos & Edinson Ortiz-Benavides, 2021. "The External Vulnerability of the Colombian Economy 1990-2015: A Comparative Analysis," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 94, pages 11-46, Enero-Jun.
    17. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2012. "Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter for Public Indebtedness in Developing Countries?," CERDI Working papers halshs-00749469, HAL.
    18. Andrew Curtis & Benjamin McLellan, 2023. "Framework for Assessment of the Economic Vulnerability of Energy-Resource-Exporting Countries," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-38, February.
    19. Valérie ANGEON & Jean-François HOARAU, 2015. "Introduction - Les Petites Économies Insulaires : Un Monde À Part Entière ?," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 42, pages 5-13.
    20. Joël CARIOLLE, 2014. "Corruption in Turbulent Times: a Response to Shocks?," Working Papers P106, FERDI.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Health epidemics; International tourism; Small islands; Vulnerability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • Z32 - Other Special Topics - - Tourism Economics - - - Tourism and Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04301932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.