This study tries to explain through a single model the number of tourist arrivals, using “the human development index” and “the political stability and absence of violence/terrorism index”, for a panel of Mediterranean countries. The sample is composed of seven countries in the Mediterranean region, namely: France, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Morocco, Croatia and Tunisia. In order to explain the attractiveness of tourism, Ritchie and Zins (1978) attached great importance to "social and cultural characteristics" and to "attitude towards tourists". These two attributes are intimately linked to the explanatory variables of our model. These explanatory variables also have common dimensions regarding the three following attributes: "hosting infrastructure", "destination culture and reception of the local population" and "security", Ritchie and Zins (1978), Kim (1998), Gallarza et al. (2002), Enright and Newton (2004), Cracolici and Nijkamp (2008) and Jin et al. (2012) consider them as strong attributes of tourist attractiveness. Our panel data model includes the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) (2013). This index essentially takes into account the following dimensions: safety and security, health and hygiene, education, training and availability of skilled workers. These dimensions are fully reflected in the two explanatory variables of our model: the index of political stability and absence of violence / terrorism and the index of human development. However, our research is original in comparison with the World Economic Forum's (2013) Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI). Indeed, the econometric model of panel data, presents the advantage of simultaneously studying several countries over a period and using homogeneity and Hausman tests. It constitutes a practical tool to build a single model, valid for several countries and useful forecasting tourist flows. Validated on a statistical and econometric basis with a good predictive quality, our panel data model, i.e. the random effect model, shows that the political stability and absence of violence/terrorism and the human development indexes act positively on the number of tourist arrivals. Thus, it considers safety and security, health and hygiene, education, training and availability of skilled workers and standard of living, as strong attributes to explain the attractiveness of a country.

• Nathalie Montargot(CRM La Rochelle Business School, France)
• Abdessamad Ouchen(Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University Fez, Morocco)