Abstract
Many argue that tourism development is beneficial for local economies, partly because of spillover effects. Others hold that tourism jobs are lower paying, often seasonal, and can generate a host of social ills with earned income concentrated in low-income households. A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of a Pennsylvania region is used to test the impacts of tourism businesses supported by the Progress Fund a regional Community Development Financial Institution, on household income distribution by incorporating secondary and primary employment based income. Analysis indicates that tourism-oriented activity has relatively large contributions to lower and upper as opposed to middle income households.
Highlights
Because of long-term declines in natural resource extraction and manufacturing, a number of rural development advocates urge rural communities to take advantage of the economic opportunities afforded by a strong tourism sector (Dawson and Brown 1989).for some rural places, tourism may be the only viable growth option
Critics contend that growth in tourism employment has negative effects on regional household income distribution, but such strategies can introduce a host of social ills into a given place
In this paper we develop and implement one such model––a social accounting matrix (SAM)––to assess the economic and income distributional impacts of businesses supported by the Progress Fund, a Pennsylvania-based Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) specializing in lending to tourism-based businesses and active in a
Summary
For some rural places, tourism may be the only viable growth option. Besides creating jobs and bringing in outside money, tourism-based businesses are often environmentally clean and can help diversify the local economic base, making an economy less vulnerable during economic downturns. Tourism development can be equivalent to small business development, which is generally viewed as an attractive means of facilitating local economic growth. A significant literature questions tourism’s desirability because it primarily generates lower-paying, more transient jobs (e.g., Wagner 1997). Critics contend that growth in tourism employment has negative effects on regional household income distribution, but such strategies can introduce a host of social ills into a given place. Tourism’s limitations are often acknowledged, proponents believe that the emphasis on low-paying job generation has been exaggerated by those opposed to tourism development
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