The synergistic effect of natural disaster frequency and severity on inbound tourist flows from the annual perspective

The impacts of natural disasters on inbound tourism have recently received growing attention due to the increased frequency of natural disasters. Previous literature has reached different conclusions on the effects of disaster severity and frequency, and few studies have considered both the severity and frequency of natural disasters in the same statistical model. The synergistic effect of these two attributes of natural disasters is unrevealed herein. To enhance the current knowledge, this paper assesses the impacts of both the severity and frequency of natural disasters on the inbound tourist flows of destination countries from an annual perspective. We integrate 258,401 bilateral tourist movements and 9892 natural disasters in 177 countries between 1995 and 2018 and analyze the data using a panel regression. The results show that disaster severity deters tourists from visiting destinations, but disaster frequency indicates a positive effect. We also identify the positive moderating effect of disaster frequency.

Automated summary

The study examined the impacts of both the severity and frequency of natural disasters on inbound tourist flows of destination countries, finding that disaster severity deters tourists from visiting destinations while disaster frequency has a positive effect, and also identified the positive moderating effect of disaster frequency.