MODELLING INTERNATIONAL TOURISM DEMAND IN THAILAND

This paper sought to find the short-run and long-run relationships between international tourist arrivals in Thailand with economic variables such as GDP, the price of goods and services, transportation costs, and the exchange rate for the period from 1997(Q1)-2005(Q2). Both the Cointegration techniques based on Johansen and Juselius (1990) and Error Correction Mechanisms based on Engle and Granger concept (1997) were used to find the long-run and short-run relationships of the international tourism demand model for Thailand. This paper used the full six standard method test for unit root tests such as ADF-Test (1979), PP-Test (1997, 1999), KPSS-Test (1992), DF-GLS Test (1996), the ERS Point Optimal Test and Ng and Perron (2001). The full six standard method test for unit root test have not previously been used to test unit roots for estimating tourism demand models. The long-run results indicate that growth in income (GDP) of Thailand’s major tourist source markets has a positive impact on international visitor arrivals to Thailand while both transportation cost and exchange rate has a negative impact on international visitor arrivals to Thailand. The findings were consistent with economic theory and the implications of the model can be used for policy making.