Where do tourism tokens travel to and from?

Abstract

This study aims to identify the sources of spillovers affecting tourism tokens and classify the type of assets to which they correspond. Using daily data for different asset classes from June 2018 through November 2022, we employ a TVP-VAR methodology to test the connectedness between two tourism tokens, two leading travel equity indices, and the two dominant cryptocurrencies, namely, Bitcoin and Ethereum. The findings show that tourism tokens are relatively independent of fluctuations in the traditional sources affecting the travel and leisure sector, such as the U.S. dollar, the price of oil, or travel equity indices. These results hint that tourism tokens are more closely related to cryptocurrencies rather than pure travel goods. The results may help decision-makers in the travel and hospitality industries considering the use of tourism tokens identify the potential forces impacting them.