This paper presents new stylized facts on the evolution of the external shape and intra-distribution movements of the distribution of per capita international tourist arrival across 149 countries between 1995 and 2014. The results from nonparametric stochastic kernel estimation suggest that the distribution of international tourist arrival evolved from a twin-peak towards a unimodal one. Moreover, it has become more concentrated. The results confirm that cross-country dispersion in per capita international tourist arrival declined significantly over the past 20 years. Countries at the lower tail of the per capita international tourist arrival distribution significantly improved their relative positions, confirming that tourist arrival increased at a faster rate in unfrequented destinations. Our findings support that the tourism markets convergence hypothesis (Narayan, 2006) is present in the cross-country setting.
