Tourism and economic growth: an application to coastal regions in the Mediterranean area

Abstract

This paper describes regional touristic supply under the framework of territorial capital to understand which territorial assets are the most important for stimulating economic growth. We used spatial regression models to consider spatial dependencies among regions, and Bayesian Model Averaging to specify our models using only the most relevant territorial assets. We have focused on the Mediterranean coast. The results show that many of the variables considered in our models play an important role in predicting GDP, recognizing them as strategic in economic growth, as well as a variety of strictly tourist assets, such as cultural heritage and landscape.