Tourism and growth in a cross section of countries

The authors provide an empirical assessment of the relationship between tourism specialization and economic growth by updating the findings of previous papers written on this issue. They use data for more than 150 countries, covering different time spans between 1980 and 2005. Contrary to previous findings (for example, Brau et al, 2004 and 2007), tourism-based countries did not grow at a higher rate than non-tourism-based countries, except for the 1980-1990 period for which, however, the data on international tourism were not fully reliable.