Heterogeneity of inbound tourism driven by exchange rate fluctuations: implications for tourism business recovery and resilience in Australia

Quantifying risk spillovers from exchange rates to inbound tourist arrivals by purpose of visit is essential for Australia to take proactive measures to achieve tourism business recovery and resilience after such critical events like the recent bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a monthly dataset over the period January 1998–March 2020, this paper calculates the conditional value-at-risk (CoVaR) to evaluate how different types of inbound tourists to Australia respond to exchange rate fluctuations. The empirical results identify inbound tourist arrivals with the highest sensitivity to exchange rate fluctuations, confirming the role of exchange rates in determining inbound tourist arrivals by purpose of visit. Furthermore, these results shed light on provisions of tourism products, services, and infrastructural facilities to satisfy different requirements of Australia’s inbound tourists by purpose of visit, aiming to promote tourism business recovery and resilience in Australia.