From beaches to Fintech: Exploring the connectedness of tourism, Fintech, and cryptocurrency

Abstract

This paper examines spillover dynamics, hedging effectiveness, and portfolio optimisation across tourism, cryptocurrency, and Fintech markets within a time-varying connectedness framework that incorporates traditional financial markets. We document pronounced time-varying spillovers, peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, with traditional finance emerging as the dominant shock transmitter and the tourism sector as a key net receiver. Transmission-channel evidence suggests that total connectedness increases with credit stress and is positively correlated with market uncertainty and tourism mobility, with these effects intensifying during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cryptocurrencies offer the least costly but weakest hedges, while tourism assets hedge crypto exposure more effectively, albeit with greater downside risk. Dynamic portfolio weight strategies outperform hedge-ratio strategies, and the minimum connectedness portfolio (MCoP) delivers the highest risk-adjusted returns. Diebold–Mariano tests indicate no significant differences in return predictability, whereas Jobson–Korkie results show that minimum correlation portfolio (MCP) and MCoP significantly outperform the minimum-variance portfolio (MVP). Downside risk measures highlight the superior performance of MCoP at the cost of deeper drawdowns. These findings underscore the value of connectedness-based strategies for portfolio design in increasingly integrated markets.