**1. Introduction**

Tourism plays a vital role in the economic growth of many countries, contributing to the development of related services and infrastructure. Thus, the development of tourism affects the progress and prosperity of the national economy (Sinclair 1998). International tourists bring foreign currencies to destination countries, increase residents' incomes, create jobs, improve living standards, and contribute to expanding and strengthening international economic relations. Tourism development has become an important goal for most governments, especially in developing countries. Therefore, studying and proposing policies to develop tourism has become an issue of interest to both governments and researchers in recent years.

According to Boers and Cottrell (2007), the demands of tourists in the 21st century are very specialized and varied, so tourists are not simply satisfied with conventional travel experiences. To meet the unique and diverse demands of tourists, Dujmovic and Vitasovic (2014) argue that it is important to develop new tourism products and destinations, providing tourists with more sources of inspirational experience. Matias et al. (2007) point out that factors driving tourism's growth and development have been identified and improved, including improved income and wealth, improved traffic, changes in lifestyles and consumption values, entertainment space, international globalization, immigration, special events, education, information and communications technology, marketing, promotion of tourist destinations, infrastructure in general, and tourism infrastructure in particular. Therefore, it can be said that improving tourism infrastructure to increase the attractiveness of the destination is an essential factor in attracting tourists. The studies of Tribe (2004), Naudé and Saayman (2005), and Seetanah et al. (2011) point out that a country's infrastructure determines its potential attractiveness as a tourist destination.

**Citation:** Nguyen, Quang Hai. 2021. Impact of Investment in Tourism Infrastructure Development on Attracting International Visitors: A Nonlinear Panel ARDL Approach Using Vietnam's Data. *Economies* 9: 131. https://doi.org/10.3390/ economies9030131

Academic Editor: Ralf Fendel

Received: 18 August 2021 Accepted: 9 September 2021 Published: 14 September 2021

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Furthermore, recent studies have shown that tourism infrastructure has a positive impact both directly and indirectly on the quality of life of residents through sustainable tourism development (Mamirkulova et al. 2020). Therefore, there have been studies related to tourism infrastructure, although this issue is not always entirely the focus of research, such as those considering the role of infrastructure in tourism development (Prideaux 2000; Jovanovi´c and Ili´c 2016), infrastructure impact on tourism development (Seetanah et al. 2011; Yu 2016), the relationship between infrastructure and tourism (Suleiman and Albiman 2014; Mandi´c et al. 2018), the impact of transport infrastructure on tourism development (Khadaroo and Seetanah 2007a, 2007b, 2008; Seetanah and Khadaroo 2009; Ouariti and Jebrane 2020), relationship between tourism infrastructure and international visitor flows (Lim et al. 2019), and the relationship between foreign direct investment and tourism development (Selvanathan et al. 2012; Khoshnevis Yazidi et al. 2015; Samimi et al. 2017). These studies have shown the impact of infrastructure, or some of its components, on tourism development in various contexts. However, to the best of our knowledge, studies considering the full impact of tourism infrastructure components such as transport infrastructure, social infrastructure, and environmental infrastructure on attraction to tourists are rare. This is the driving force for this study, examining the role of investment in tourism infrastructure development and in attracting international tourists, using empirical data from Vietnam.

Vietnam is a developing country located in Southeast Asia with many historical relics and famous landmarks, notably including eight UNESCO heritage sites. The tourism industry plays a vital role in the development of the economy. Therefore, it is seen as a key economic sector. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (2020), in 2019 the tourism industry directly contributed to 9.2% of Vietnam's GDP, including the vital role of international tourists. However, despite having diversified and abundant tourism resources, if investment in tourism infrastructure development is limited, Vietnam will become an unattractive tourist destination and will be unable to compete with regional destinations such as Thailand, Malaysia, or Singapore.

This study aims to determine the impact of investment in tourism infrastructure development on attracting international tourists. The important contribution of this paper will be a detailed description of the different roles of investment in transport and communication infrastructure development, the hotel and restaurant industry, and recreation facilities in attracting international tourists, with an updated sample to 2019. Research results are expected to contribute both theoretically and practically, providing necessary implications to attract future tourism development investment.

After the introduction section, the structure of the study includes four further sections: Section 2 presents a literature review; Section 3 presents the methodology and data; Section 4 presents the research results and discussion; and finally the article ends with the conclusion in Section 5.
