A study of impact of tourism direct employment trends on tourism arrivals: an empirical analysis of Sri Lankan context

Abstract

Sri Lanka is one of the major tourist attraction destinations in South Asian region. After the economic reforms in 1977, the successive governments implemented various attractive policies and programmes to promote tourism in pursuing economic growth and development. The government further employed a number of initiatives to encourage and attract tourism arrival in the country. In this backdrop, this study is to analyze the impacts of the tourism direct employment trend on tourism arrivals in Sri Lankan context by using the time series data from year 1978 to 2017. The dependent variable used in this study is tourism arrivals. The independent variables are tourism direct employment and tourism Earnings. The tools used to achieve the objective of this study are Correlation Analysis, Multiple Regression, and Residual test. In this study, it is found that the correlation relationship between the variables is very strong. tourism direct employment and Tourism Earnings are directly related with tourists’ arrivals. The data collected have analyzed by using the econometrics software EViews 10. Based on the result recommended that to increase the magnitude of the direction tourism arrival in Sri Lanka, the factors such tourism direct employment and tourism Earnings should play statistically significant roles. This significant role should be considered by the relent authorities in Sri Lanka.