MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE GROWTH OF TOURIST FLOW: HOW DIGITALIZATION IMPACTS THE ECONOMIC INDICATORS OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

The paper examines a statistically testable relationship between mobile technology diffusion (as an observable component of digitalisation) and core tourism-industry outcomes at the country level. The object of analysis is the tourism industry within national economies, while the subject is the association between population mobile connectedness and inbound tourism flows as well as tourism-related foreign-currency receipts captured by official statistics. The study aims to provide evidence-based estimates of the direction and robustness of this association while accounting for baseline cross-country macroeconomic heterogeneity, and to derive policy-relevant implications for digital infrastructure and tourism development. The empirical design follows the “latest available snapshot” principle, acknowledging unavoidable publication lags in annual tourism statistics and subsequent revisions. As a reference point, the paper uses the postpandemic recovery of international tourism for 2024 as reported in official releases and statistical reporting [1]. Mobile connectedness measures rely on official 2024 statistical facts and figures [2], while tourism and macro-controls are drawn from internationally comparable indicators in major global databases [3]. The analysis combines cross-country comparisons, group-level contrasts, and parsimonious econometric specifications (correlation analysis and regressions with robust standard errors) to identify patterns consistent with the role of mobile digitalisation as an infrastructural enabling condition for tourism demand and tourism export revenues. [1–3]