Abstract
The development of tourism is usually associated, in positive terms, with economic development, foreign currency inflows, employment opportunities, infrastructure improvements, sustainable development and poverty alleviation. However, the nature of the tourism-growth relationship is still a matter of academic debate, and, perhaps, an expression of the inconsistencies and contradictions of public policies designed to support this industry. Researchers and practitioners have not yet come to an agreement on a number of fundamental questions: does tourism stimulate economic growth or the converse, and whether the causality, if it does exist, is uni or bidirectional, is constant or can change its direction in the medium - or long run. The present paper investigates the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and international tourism in Romania, over the 1995–2016 period. Our results show that the causal effect of the GDP on the international tourist arrivals and on the international tourism receipts is significant in the long run in Romania. In the short-run, we find a unidirectional causal relationship from the international tourism receipts to GDP, and a bidirectional causal relationship between GDP and the number of international tourist arrivals.
Highlights
The results show that the causal effect of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the ARIV and on the REC variable is significant in the long run, the estimated adjusted coefficients are statistically significant and relevant, as p-values are less than 0.05
With respect to the long-term causal effect of the ARIV and the REC variable on the GDP, we observe positive values which presuppose that the system deviates from the long-term equilibrium path
This paper aims at analysing the long-run and short-run relationship between GDP and international tourist arrivals (ARIV), respectively international tourism receipts (REC) over the period 1995–2016 in Romania, using the Johansen cointegration test and Granger causality
Summary
According to the World Tourism Organization (2018), the growth of international exchanges, the promotion of new destinations and the massive investments in tourism in the last decades contributed to the transformation of this industry into a key factor of development, job creation and business enhancer, infrastructure developments and an increase in export. International tourism generates income growth, increases competition and efficiency among local firms, by connecting them to the international network of tour-operators, and, not least, by creating economies of scale in small firms (Balaguer & Cantavella-Jorda, 2002)
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