Purpose – This study aims to investigate the impact of news shocks on the growth rate of German and British tourist arrivals in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach – This research utilizes GARCH as a detection device to distinguish the sensitivity of German and British tourists to news shocks, and employs monthly log-differenced tourist arrivals covering the period from January 1996 to December 2006. Findings – The uncertainty about future British arrival rates does not follow any specific pattern. The impact of news shocks seems to have an asymmetric, long-lasting, but decaying, effect on German tourists. The national culture seems to modify the impact of news shocks on visiting decisions; German tourists seem to be more sensitive to news shocks than British tourists. Research limitations/implications – The research covers only British and German tourists’ decisions to visit Turkey. The question of whether the composition of the mean equation substantially alters the variance structure merits further study. Practical implications – The findings suggest that, in the case of an unexpected negative news shock, tourism and travel-related organizations (private and government) should concentrate their mitigating policy responses on news-sensitive nationalities. Destinations that are more susceptible to negative occurrences such as natural disasters or political instability could reconsider their approaches to their target markets by taking into consideration characteristics of national cultures in their strategy. Originality/value – The paper compares, for the first time, non-event-specific sensitivity of national cultures to news shocks and offers practical recommendations for response strategies.