Impact of psychic distance stimuli on international tourist flows: A cross-country analysis

Abstract

Research on psychic distance in tourism studies has mainly focused on perceived psychic distance, while little attention has been paid to psychic distance stimuli. Applying the Cultural-Administrative-Geographic-Economic (CAGE) distance framework, this study employs a gravity model framework to investigate the relationship between psychic distance stimuli and international tourist flows and the moderating role of Internet popularity in such a relationship based on information asymmetry theory. Further, this study investigates the effects of psychic distance stimuli along the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic dimensions. The empirical analysis is based on a panel dataset of bilateral tourist flows between 56 countries from 2006 to 2019. The results indicate that psychic distance stimuli negatively impact international tourist flows, but the negative effect decreases with increasing Internet penetration rate in countries of origin. The four distance dimensions exert negative effects on bilateral tourist flows. This study also provides implications for alleviating the impact of psychic distance stimuli between countries derived by COVID-19 on international tourism in the post-pandemic era.