The Economics of Perception of Africa: Risk Narratives and Tourism Demand in Africa

Bachelor's thesis submitted to Utrecht University as part of the BSc Economics and Business Economics Honours Programme. This thesis examines whether the Western media potrayal of Africa influences international tourism demand. Using media sentiment data from the GDELT 2.0 Global Knowledge Graph and panel fixed-effects models, the study investigates the relationship between media narratives, terrorism-related coverage, and tourist arrivals across African countries. The findings indicate that general negative media sentiment is not statistically significant in explaining tourist arrivals. However, terrorism-framed media coverage is associated with an approximately 7–9% reduction in tourist arrivals for each unit deterioration in media tone, after accounting for objective terrorism activity and other relevant factors. The thesis discusses the implications of these findings for African destination marketing and proposes greater attention to intra-African and emerging-market tourism.