On the relation between tourism and trade: A network experiment

Current literature on world global trade and tourism indicates these two areas are related and may influence each other. This study investigates the relationship between international tourism and international trade flows using an approach based on network sciences. In this paper, bilateral trade-exports data and inbound tourist arrival data were modeled as weighted directed networks and then analyzed for possible common properties. The empirical results show strong weighted degree correlation and strong PageRank correlation between trade and tourism networks. This paper shows the relationship using metrics derived from network sciences.