Gulf Cooperation Council Outbound Tourism: The Role of Expatriates

Abstract

The situation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is quite uncommon in that the population of expatriates far exceeds that of the nationals, except for Saudi Arabia. Communication, interaction, and mutual coexistence that take place formally or informally between the two groups and within the expatriate community carry the potential to influence the direction of outbound tourism. This article extends the general gravity model to explain the dynamics of tourism outflows of the GCC countries by concentrating on the immigrant/expatriate effect. The results reveal that expatriates make implicit advertising effect to attract the tourists from GCC to their home countries.