DEMOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN INTERNATIONAL (OUTBOUND) TOURISM
OLEKSANDR KOROL1
1Department of Geography and Management of Tourism of Faculty of Geography, Chernivtsi Yuriy Fedkovych National University, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, e‐mail: o.korol@chnu.edu.ua
ABSTRACT. – Demographic Factor in International (Outbound) Tourism. Basing on statistical data and World Bank’s and World Tourism Organization’s standards, we have considered gross and per capita international (outbound) tourism flows checked against such population’s demographic attributes as its number, age structure and urban extent. Calculations were performed with respect to nearly 70 countries of the world to help establish the effects of demographic factor upon international tourism. The conducted analysis showed that international tourism activity is the most strongly effected upon by the age structure, in particular, children and seniors should be in the first place outlined with their differently directed influence. These two demographic characteristics inversely depicted the level of the country’s development. If households’ per capita consumption expenditures are taken to be an indicator of the country’s level of development, it will be with the share of seniors that such expenditures correlate to its best (r = 0.7). This is why it seems to be well‐ substantiated that the share of people ageing 65 years and older can serve as the major demographic indicator of influence on international tourism. Having made use of the multivariate regression analysis, we checked the number of international tourism departures per 100 people against such demographic attributes as shares of seniors and urban population. The findings showed an average correlation R = 0.62, that is, the same as in the case of pair correlation with age group above 64 years old. In other words, the urban extent as additional parameter did not at any rate reduce the strength of relationship.
Keywords: international tourism, tourism departures, international tourism activity, demographic factor, population number, age structure, urbanization.