Tourism stimulates economic growth by generating income, employment, investment and exports. But it also generates valuable spin-off benefits, including preservation of cultural heritage, improved infrastructure and local community facilities (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2013). According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon, which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or non-residents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which imply tourism expenditure. Tourism value chain consists of complex relations between different stakeholders, activities and policy measures at national and international level (figure 1). These include services and activities which take place in the tourists’ country of residence (outbound country) e.g. demand for tourism products and services, international flights. There are also services and activities taking place in tourists’ destination country (inbound country) e.g. supply of tourism products and services, excursions, ground transportation services.
The World Travel and Tourism Council together with Oxford Economics have developed an approach for measuring the direct, indirect as well as induced contribution of travel and tourism to GDP and employment
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the direct contributions of travel and tourism cover the total spending within a particular country on travel and tourism by residents and non-residents for business and leisure. It also includes government spending on travel and tourism services related to visitors (e.g. museums, national parks etc);
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the indirect contributions of travel and tourism refer to investment, purchase of goods and services by the sectors dealing directly with tourists (e.g. purchases of cleaning services by hotels) and government spending on travel and tourism development.; and
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the induced contributions cover the spending by those directly or indirectly employed in travel and tourism sector.
