INBOUND TOURIST FLOWS AND INTERNATIONAL TOURISM ATTRACTIVENESS

Abstract

The research is based on the use of the statistics and methodology of the World Bank and the World Tourism Organization, as well as methods of mathematical statistics. The purpose of this research is to study inbound tourist flows and to define attractiveness of a certain country for international tourists, regardless of its size. As result, the ITA index is proposed to estimate the inbound tourism attractiveness of different destinations. Analysis of countries by this index showed that micro-state-megacities have the largest one, high attractiveness was observed in the countries of old Europe, excluding Scandinavian. The most attractive among them were the Netherlands, Great Britain and Mediterranean destinations. The rest of the European countries and the tropical islands have slightly smaller the ITA index. The smallest inbound tourism attractiveness in the European region was in Scandinavia, and in the world – in South America, in the poor countries of Asia and Africa. As a result, it was found that the following factors could affect the inbound tourism attractiveness of a certain country: the level of socio-economic  development; climate together with marine waters; transport and geographical position regarding the regions that generate outbound tourist flows.