The impact of embassies and consulates on tourism

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of embassies and consulates on tourist flows from the G-7 countries. The results indicate that embassies and consulates have a positive and significant effect on tourism that ranges between 15% and 30% depending on the estimation technique. Moreover, the impact is larger for the sample of developing countries. The disaggregated analysis shows that, after controlling for both origin and destination fixed effects, a significant impact is found in the seven origin countries.