An Empirical Study on Tourism and Economic Growth in Greece: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag Boundary Test Approach

Abstract

The objective of this research is to analyze the impact of the tourism industry on the economic growth of Greece. The study employs empirical analysis and time series econometric techniques to evaluate the Tourism-Driven Growth hypothesis. Information spanning from 1995 to 2022 about the growth of tourism (TR), expenditure on tourism (TE), average expenditure on tourism per capita (PCTE), and economic growth (GDP) was utilized. Initially, the authors examined the interconnections among these variables using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds Test. After identifying a statistically significant cointegration relationship, the study proceeded to estimate the long-term and short-term coefficients associated with these variables. Based on the results, it appears that there is a long-term correlation between economic growth and tourism, indicating that international tourism can have a positive impact on economic expansion.