THE IMPACT OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY ON THE WORLD’S LARGEST ECONOMIES: AN INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role and the position occupied by the tourism sector in the economic systems of the most industrialized countries. As the sector is not officially recorded, the analysis focuses on one of its most important components: Hotel and Restaurant Services. The main novelty of this study is that it takes joint account of the direct and indirect links between the other economic sectors of a country and those of other countries. The analysis uses the World Input-Output tables and two descriptive measures: the backward linkage and forward linkage. Joint consideration of these two indices reveals that only for China does tourism prove to be a key sector, while in the remaining countries the sector prove to be an independent sector.