A hierarchical cluster analysis of Türkiye s tourism revenues and expenditures (1963–2022)

Purpose: This study investigates whether hierarchical cluster analysis can identify distinct structural regimes in Türkiye's tourism revenues and expenditures between 1963 and 2022 Design/methodology/approach: The analyses were performed using NCSS statistical software.The dataset consists of annual observations covering the period from 1963 to 2022, obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (KTB), and the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT).The optimal number of clusters was determined by jointly considering the dendrogram breakpoint, the Elbow method, and the Silhouette score Results: The clustering results revealed different structural patterns for tourism revenues and expenditures.Tourism revenues were classified into three distinct clusters: the early period , the growth and crisis period (1997-2018 together with 2020-2021), and the pre-pandemic peak and rapid recovery period (2019 and 2022).Conversely, tourism expenditures were grouped into two main clusters: the modern era and post-pandemic recovery period (2003-2019 and 2022) and the early development and crisis period (1963-2002 together with 2020-2021) Discussion: The findings indicate that tourism revenues and expenditures followed different long-term structural trajectories and were highly sensitive to major economic, political, and health-related shocks, which generated significant structural breaks.These findings provide a long-term analytical framework for understanding the evolution of Türkiye's tourism sector and offer evidence to support crisis-oriented tourism policies.