Estimating the economic multipliers for wildlife-based tourism in Zambia

We derived 2015 wildlife-based tourism multipliers for the rural area of Zambia where input-output tables (I-OT) are unavailable. To estimate multipliers in a data-poor environment, the national direct requirements coefficients were first derived from the country’s 2010 I-OT. These direct requirements coefficients were re-scaled to rural area region by multiplication with the rural area production percentage shares, while the total requirements coefficients were computed through an inverse matrix conversion (Leontief inverse matrix). This procedure is particularly useful for rural area regions with active wildlife-based tourism, where input-output tables are unavailable, with time and financial resource constraints. The ranges of the derived direct multipliers for output, income, employment and value-added multipliers were 1.10–1.27, 0.04–0.20, 6.01–35.81 and 0.52–0.71, respectively. These estimated multipliers can be used in economic models for measurement of the economic impacts of protected areas is vital for planning and management purposes and for public understanding of wildlife resource values.