The Contraction of European Economic Distances through Sustainable Tourism in the Pre-Pandemic Period

The current importance of tourism leads us to analyze the extent to which the receipts from international tourism, and tourism in general, influence the capacity of European countries to reduce the development gaps of this sector in the European context and the extent to which the economic growth is sensitive to changes in tourist arrivals, tourism receipts and expenditures. Studying the GDP per capita and the receipts from international tourism for the period 1995-2017, we find that the European tourism has an important role in economy but secondary to capital stock and exports. The methodology used is a sensitivity analysis and a multiple linear regression with two models. The results show that, on short term, the gap in the European tourism sector is explained by the ability to attract income from the international tourism. The European growth of the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the amount of expenditures that tourists are making, on tourism receipts and, to a lesser extent, on tourist arrivals, but in all cases, the connection is a direct and positive one but, even so, the capital stock and the exports continue to play a very important role for the European economy. The analysis suggests that tourism is not a panacea for growth. On the contrary, it is one of the activities that stimulate growth along with investments, technology, or any other form of capital, together with exports and labor market conditions.