Tourism and EU-Elections. Effects of Travel on the Identity Formation and Voter Turnout

This article deals with the research question, if tourism exerts an influence on European identity development and if this often unexplored factor in psephology has a direct or indirect impact on participation at European elections. A theoretical model postulates an influence of three central tourist indicators (tourism intensity, travel intensity and outbound tourism in EU-27 states) on the cosmopolitan orientation and the identification of citizens with Europe (intermediate level) as well as on the voter turnout in European elections (dependent variable). The theoretical model is operationalized using national und regional indicators (NUTS II level) from four different data sources. The effects of tourist behavior and tourism intensity are measured with correlations on the national level and with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) on the regional level. Additionally, a sequential multiple regression analysis indicates that the direct influence of tourist indicators on voter turnout can be mainly explained by regional characteristics and specific effects in Eastern, Southern und Western Europe. The study can be seen as a first approach to measure the influence of tourism on European identity and voting behavior. Future studies on the individual level would be necessary to provide support for the results of this study and to enlighten the regional specifics in a differentiated perspective.