Does personal freedom influence outbound tourism?

•We examine the impact of personal freedom in a country on outbound tourism.•The economic theory of scarcity is used as a theoretical foundation for this study.•Panel data regression models are applied to test the research hypothesis.•A lower level of personal freedom in a country increases outbound tourism.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of personal freedom in a country on outbound tourism after controlling for other relevant outbound tourism determinants. Using a panel of 80 countries over a period of 13 years (1999–2011) and applying panel fixed-effects and generalized method of moments (GMM) techniques, our results reveal that a lower level of personal freedom in a country increases outbound tourism. These results are more robust for developing countries.