Regaining international tourism attractiveness after an armed conflict: the role of security spending

This paper investigates how long it takes a country to regain international tourism attractiveness after an armed conflict using gravity panel data. This includes examining the influence of security spending as proxied by military spending in the underlying negative relationship between international tourism and armed conflict. The results show that security spending cannot reverse the negative impact of armed conflict on international tourist flows in a destination country in a short period of time. Security spending, however, can reverse the negative impact of conflict after about eight years following the onset of the conflict as international tourist flows increase. Armed conflict is very costly and should be avoided by all means possible. In the event of an unavoidable conflict, effective utilization of security spending can help to restore peace after some time, which in turn would lead to an increase in international tourist flows.