Modeling international tourism demand for Turkey from countries with bilateral visa-free travel agreements and assesing the effects of these agreements on the number of tourist arrivals: Panel data approach

Tourism incomes have an important place in Turkey?s economy. To this end, since the 1990s Turkey in the foreign policy has began to sign visa-free travel agreements with other countries on behalf of the contribution on tourism incomes and as well as to increase economical and social relations with that countries. This study analyzes the effects of the visa-free travel agreements on the demand for Turkey inbound tourizm during 1984-2011 period among visitors from the related countries. In this paper the variables, considered effective on tourism demand were taken up with visa-free agreement variable to explain the tuorism demand of Turkey. First, during 1984-2011 period the number of tourist arivals to Turkey from twentysix countries, which have visa-free travel agreement and regular data could be drived, was tried to explain with the visitors income, bilateral exchange rates, lagged tourist arrivals and the time trend. Visa variable added to model as dummy varialbe or trend variable to determine the impact of the visa-free travel agreement. Second, using panel data for the period 1984-2011, estimated the quantitative relationship between the volume of visitor arrivals to Turkey and the determinants. And finally it is determined that the visa-free travel agreements have positive effects on the visitor arrivals to Turkey from related countries.