Do culturally diverse destinations attract or deter tourism? Probing competing psychologies in global travel records

The effects of cultural diversity on tourism are mixed. We provide an integrated test of two competing psychological theories of human motivation that are able to explain such complexities. Self-expansion theory (SET) posits that cultural diversity attracts tourists through exploration motives; whilst intergroup threat theory (ITT) proposes that cultural diversity deters tourists by heightening safety concerns. A gravity model is used to test the two theories, drawing on the largest global travel dataset covering 196 origin countries and 150 destination countries over 27 years. The findings revealed an overall negative association between the cultural diversity of the destination country and tourist flows, which varied meaningfully by age and societal norms: consistent with ITT, especially older populations avoided diverse destinations, whilst consistent with SET, younger ones were attracted to them. This latter pattern was more pronounced in less indulgent origin societies. This study shows how psychology and demographics together explain tourist behaviour, with implications for cultural exchange, international relations, tourism marketing, and equity in developing and diverse nations.