双边政治冲突事件多大程度影响到访游客人数?——基于2012年中日钓鱼岛事件的影响效应评估

Do Bilateral Political Conflicts Affect Visitor Arrivals?——Empirical Study of Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands Dispute in 2012

文章基于国际关系影响视角,将双边政治冲突事件对国际货物贸易影响的相关研究延伸至国际旅游服务贸易领域,以2012年9月因日本政府实质性推进钓鱼岛"国有化"计划所引发的中日双边政治冲突事件为例,运用基于反事实因果理论的双重差分法,就事件对中国公民赴日旅游的影响效应进行了全面评估。研究表明,此次事件导致中国赴日旅游人数平均减少了16.8%,影响效应自2012年第四季度开始显现并在该季度影响最大,当期中国赴日旅游人数下降了60.7%,至2013年第三季度负面影响开始消退,事件影响持续约15个月,其间,中国赴日旅游人数累积减少近80万,并对日本入境旅游收入造成了近19亿美元的损失。从影响效应对比来看,该事件对日本入境旅游的影响程度要大于对日本向中国出口货物贸易的影响。将2017年2月因韩国不顾中方反对部署"萨德"系统引发的中韩双边政治冲突事件纳入对比后,研究发现,基于国家安全长远利益的双边政治冲突事件相对历史性领土争端问题引发的双边政治冲突,其对到访游客人数的影响效应更大、持续时间更长。

In the studies on external events impact on international tourism,scholars have focused on analyzing the events in tourist destinations,such as natural catastrophes,disease epidemics,terrorist attacks,economic crises,and political instability.However,few studies have examined the impact of bilateral political conflict between destination and tourist source.Also,by measuring the impact of tourist intention,instead of tourist behavior,the extant studies have not empirically assessed the true damage of the bilateral political conflict on visitor arrivals.This study applied the difference-indifference(DID)method to evaluate the impact of the Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands dispute in September 2012 on Chinese travel to Japan,which extended the impact assessment of bilateral political conflict on goods trade to tourism services.The data of inbound tourist to Japan was obtained from the online portal of Japan National Tourism Organization(JNTO).This dataset for the analysis covered quarterly data of 32 countries from the first quarter of 2011 through the fourth quarter of 2014.The parallel trend graph of DID model revealed a pronounced dip for Chinese travel to Japan in the third quarter of 2012,which was not present for other countries visitors.The dispute resulted in a 16.8%quarterly average reduction in Chinese visitor arrivals to Japan:that amounted to a cumulative decline in visitor numbers of approximately 800,000 and a US$1.9 billion reduction in tourism revenue in Japan over a period of 15 months.The impact of the dispute varied with time:the number of Chinese visitor arrivals in Japan showed a 60.7%decrease in the fourth quarter of 2012;the negative effects have diminished by the third quarter of 2013.Additional robustness checks included regressions on time span variation,regressions on a restricted sample,regressions that control for pre-existing time trend and placebo test.Furthermore,using the DID method as well,the study discussed the impact heterogeneity for different trade types and different bilateral political conflicts,which provided some explanations of possible reasons for impact difference.It was evident that the impact of the SinoJapanese Diaoyu Islands dispute on inbound tourism to Japan was stronger than that on Japan’s export trade to China.Comparing with the deployment of THAAD in ROK in February 2017,the study showed that the bilateral political conflict due to historical territorial dispute and the bilateral political conflict involving fundamental interests related to national security,differed in their impact intensity and duration:the latter tended to have enduring and greater effects.This paper highlighted the bilateral political conflict as a key risk factor in destination management.Managers of tourist business and destinations should not underestimate the effects.