Does economic policy uncertainty drive outbound tourism expenditures in 20 selected destinations?

Across several destinations, tourism receipts and the aspects of tourism industry has continued to influence the quality of life of the people as well contributing to the national development and sustainable growth. However, the uncertainties and risks experienced in the tourism industry and other economy sectors have remained the drawback of most economies and destinations. As such, the panel of 20 selected destinations is investigated via the common correlated effect method to examine the nexus of economic policy uncertainty and tourism development over the period 2001–2017. Interestingly, the result established a long term relationship between the economic policy uncertainty index and outbound tourism expenditures. Specifically, the finding revealed that outbound tourism expenditures are affected negatively by the rise of uncertainty in economic policies, thus suggesting instability of economic-related policy is the bane of tourism development in the destinations. This result stands to have important policy guide for especially for tourism-related activities in the panel of 20 selected countries.