Macro-economic Factors Influencing Tourism Entrepreneurship: The Case of Kazakhstan

Abstract

Tourism development contributes to economic development. In emerging economies like Kazakhstan, tourism development needs active entrepreneurship. As the country emerges from the post-Soviet era, there has been an increase in economic development and prosperity. Entrepreneurship in the tourism sector can drive economies forward through the creation of new tourism and hospitality businesses. The macroeconomic environment can influence entrepreneurial activity. We use an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to examine the impact of macroeconomic factors on tourism entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan. Using data from 1996 to 2018, we find that there is a positive short-run relationship between wages in the tourism sector and entrepreneurship, suggesting that wage growth in the sector attracts entrepreneurs. In the long run, however, tourism sector wages have a negative relationship with entrepreneurship, suggesting that these higher wages represent a higher cost to entrepreneurship. There is also a strong positive relationship between national income and tourism entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan. Implications of macroeconomic policy changes for Kazakhstan and other emerging economies are discussed.