Potential impacts of Euro on destination choice

Abstract

The use of Euro along with EU membership has engendered some political, economic and social effects in all over the world as well as in European countries. The review of literature indicates that there are no much empirical studies specifically addressing the effects of Euro on the tourism industry. The purpose of this study is to explore how the introduction of Euro affects destination choice of the EU-citizens; and to argue, in this context, the extent to which it provides advantages or disadvantages to visit member and/or non-member countries. As the study is a kind of qualitative research, we conducted a survey containing several open-ended questions among those who were citizens of the EU-member countries and visiting Turkey in August 2004. Findings show that EU membership and thereby the use of Euro do not directly affect destination preferences of the selected EU-citizens, and have negative effects, such as rising cost of living, while the use of standard currency unit provides advantages such as the ease of travelling procedures. The paper also provides a brief discussion of practical implications for European countries.