The effect of cultural exports on inbound tourism: An empirical analysis of Turkiye

The interest and awareness hypothesis predicts that exports positively affect inbound tourism. It may be a more reasonable expectation that this effect is especially provided for cultural exports. In this context, this study investigates the effect of cultural exports on tourism for Turkiye. Findings supported the cointegration relationship among the number of tourists, tourist income, real exchange rate and cultural exports. According to the long-run ARDL model, a 1% increase in cultural exports causes a 0.2844% increase in the number of tourists. Furthermore, the results obtained regarding the effect of tourist income and real exchange rate were consistent with expectations.