Travel Channel Meets Discovery Channel or How Tourism Can Encourage Better Export Performance and Diversification in Nepal

Entering and successfully surviving in export markets is a costly process for firms. The process involves learning about the existence of foreign demand, "discovering" production costs of exportable goods, building up reputation, succeeding in product branding to reduce competitive pressures and to be constantly upgrading quality standards to better serve demanding international clients, and remaining competitive vis-à-vis other players in the global marketplace. This paper argues that tourism can help alleviate some of these costs by providing a relatively inexpensive platform for cost-discovery and by acting as a low-cost "in-house" trade fair, accessible to all domestic producers. The analysis combines product-level data on world and Nepal's exports (both for goods that are related and unrelated to tourism) with Nepalese data on tourist inflows and expenditures and macro indicators on relative prices. For tourism-related goods, the analysis reveals a positive association between tourist inflows from given destinations and their expenditures, with future merchandise exports to those destinations. Instead, for goods a priori unrelated to tourism, the data reveal no connection between tourism flows and future exports. The results suggest spillovers from tourism into merchandise export performance and diversification and would imply that there are gains from cooperation between tourism and export promotion agencies.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Reis, José Guilherme, Varela, Gonzalo
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2013-10
Subjects:	ADVERTISING, ART, BRAND, CERTIFICATION, CERTIFICATION PROCESSES, CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS, COMPETITIVE PRESSURES, CONSUMER PRICE, CONSUMER PRICE INDEX, CONSUMERS, COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, DEBT, DESTINATIONS, DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS, DEVELOPMENT POLICY, DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME, DOMESTIC PRODUCERS, DOMESTIC SALES, ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE, ECONOMIC POLICY, ECONOMIC RESEARCH, ECONOMICS LITERATURE, EUROPEAN TOURISTS, EXHIBITION, EXHIBITIONS, EXPENDITURE, EXPENDITURES, EXPORT BASKET, EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION, EXPORT GROWTH, EXPORT MARKETS, EXPORT PATTERNS, EXPORT PERFORMANCE, EXPORT PRODUCTS, EXPORT PROMOTION, EXPORT PROMOTION AGENCIES, EXPORT SUPPLY, EXPORTABLE GOODS, EXPORTERS, EXPORTS, FOREIGN MARKET, FOREIGN MARKETS, GDP, GDP DEFLATOR, GDP PER CAPITA, GLOBAL MARKETPLACE, GROWTH THEORY, HOTEL CHAINS, HOTELS, IMPORTS, INFLATION, INTERNATIONAL HOTEL, INTERNATIONAL MARKET, INTERNATIONAL TOURISM, INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS, INTERNATIONAL TRADE, LIQUIDITY, MARKET FAILURE, MARKETING, MARKETPLACE, MERCHANDISE, MERCHANDISE EXPORT, MERCHANDISE EXPORTS, MULTIPLIER EFFECTS, NUMBER OF TOURISTS, POSITIVE EFFECTS, PRODUCTION COSTS, PURCHASING, PURCHASING POWER, REAL EXCHANGE RATE, RESEARCH CENTER, SUBSTITUTES, SUPPLY FUNCTION, TOURISM, TOURISM INDUSTRY, TOURISM MARKET, TOURISM PROMOTION, TOURISM TRADE, TOURIST, TOURIST PRODUCT, TOURIST SERVICES, TRADE FAIR, TRADE FAIRS, TRADE IN GOODS, TRADE INTEGRATION, TRADE OPPORTUNITIES, TRADE PATTERNS, TRADEMARK, TRANSPORT COSTS, VALUE OF EXPORTS, VARIABLE COSTS, WORLD TRADE,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/10/18424358/travel-channel-meets-discovery-channel-or-tourism-can-encourage-better-export-performance-diversification-nepal https://hdl.handle.net/10986/16884
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