Title: The ideologies of national security and tourist visa restrictions

Authors: Craig Webster; Stanislav Ivanov

Addresses: Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, AT 150, Ball State University, 2000 W. University Ave., Muncie, IN 47306, USA ' Varna University of Management, 13A Oborishte Str., 9000 Varna, Bulgaria

Abstract: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a global shift in the adoption of policies that reduce the impact of governments controlling the flow of the factors of production across borders. However, there remains an ideological and pragmatic element in many countries' policies, the need to regulate the flow of populations into the host countries. In this piece, the authors delve into the ideologies behind the logic of the regulation of tourism flows with visas. The authors use data from the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index and correlate these data with various ideological measures as well as pragmatic constructs that should, theoretically, be linked with visa regimes. The findings show that visa regimes are most influenced by the wealth of a country, the size of its economy, and its openness to global markets, although the direction of the relationship may be different than one would anticipate.

Keywords: political ideologies; business costs; cost of terrorism; national security; tourism management; visa requirements; tourist visas; visa restrictions; tourism regulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTP.2016.081522

International Journal of Tourism Policy, 2016 Vol.6 No.3/4, pp.171 - 190

Received: 16 Nov 2015
Accepted: 06 Feb 2016
Published online: 11 Jan 2017 *

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