ANALYSING THE EFFECTS OF 2008 GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISES ON TOURISM STATISTICS WITH MULTIVARIATE STATISTICALTECHNIQUES AND TOPSIS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate tourism performance rankings of 145 countries considering three main criteria (tourism revenue, tourism expenditure and number of tourist arrivals) and the effects of 2008 global economic crisis. In this study, classification and rankings of countries and the place of Turkey in the rankings have been investigated using factor analysis, cluster analysis and TOPSIS method for the years between2006-2012. Furthermore, the analysis has been deepened for Turkey, the effects of crisis on Turkish tourism companies have been examined using their financial ratios. Findings reveal that country classifications and rankings are compatible for period before economic crisis and period after economic crisis. The results of both Factor Analysis and TOPSIS indicate that France, China, United States and Spain are belong to ranking of first 10 countries. The classification of Turkey remains the same before and after the crisis, however after the economic crisis, the ranking of Turkey has been moved up according to Factor Analysis and TOPSIS. The volatilities of financial ratios of Turkish tou rism companies have been decreased after the period of economic crisis.