Title: Measuring impact of tourism on urban economies: a review of literature

Authors: Ugo Gasparino, Elena Bellini, Barbara Del Corpo, William Malizia

Addresses: Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta, 63 20123 Milano, Italy. ' Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta, 63 20123 Milano, Italy. ' Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta, 63 20123 Milano, Italy. ' Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Corso Magenta, 63 20123 Milano, Italy

Abstract: Tourism is increasingly seen as a potential lever towards high economic growth, measured both in terms of income and employment. In recent years, interest in tourism has spread rapidly throughout many small and medium European cities, which previously have not considered themselves as tourist destinations. This paper reviews and summarises the existing literature on the economic assessment of tourism with the objectives of, firstly, identifying the main categories of impacts and, secondly, constructing an inventory of methodologies available to assess them. The paper chronologically discusses the most simplistic approaches and relaxing assumptions. Firstly, we assume a static setting, with spare capacity. In such a setting (partial equilibrium), prices do not respond to demand shocks: only quantities (production, income and jobs) adjust. Secondly, we relax this assumption and assume that there is no spare capacity: prices respond to increasing demand (general equilibrium), leading to reallocation of resources across sectors. We then move from a static to a dynamic setting and survey those contributions that look at the relationship between tourism specialisation and long-run growth.

Keywords: tourism; input-output; I-O multipliers; general equilibrium analysis; economic impact; urban economies; literature review; tourist destinations; Europe; small and medium-sized cities; economic growth.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLTM.2009.025154

International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.103 - 130

Published online: 14 May 2009 *

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