OFDI and inbound tourism: a perspective of reverse country-of-origin effect

This study is to analyze the effect of the investor country’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on its inbound tourism from the investee country. Although overseas expansion is a prevalent strategy, this study fills a gap in the literature: inbound tourism as a potential spillover of OFDI remains unexplored. Accordingly, this research proposes a conceptual model based on the reverse country-of-origin effect and conducts an empirical application with data from 202 countries/regions. The main findings show that countries with a higher number of OFDIs tend to attract more inbound tourism from the investee countries. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.