Determining Turkish households' tourism consumption expenditures in economic crisis

Abstract

Crises may influence the most economies differently in the world and cause to diminish their national wealth and rise in unemployment rates. As a developing country, Turkey has been impressed by some economic slumps in the world in different periods. This study aims to investigate the tourism participation of households and estimate the most sensitive household groups after the 2008 financial crisis by employing Heckman two-stage model. It also reveals which household groups change their tourism consumption expenditures more in Turkey. The results show that variations in income elasticity during the crisis are different to household groups. In other words, households with high income level were not significantly affected by the world economic crisis, while households with low income reduced tourism consumption expenditures both in domestic and outbound tourism.