Contribution of Tourism to Economic Growth in Turkey

Abstract

During the last three decades tourism in Turkey has become a growing sector and hence has growth promoting effects. In this respect, this study empirically investigates the contribution of tourism to GNP for Turkey by utilizing OLS procedure for the period between 1985 and 2005. The empirical findings show that the elasticity of output with respect to Capital (investment) and Tourism Revenues is found to be around 0.47 and 0.53, respectively, from which the study concludes that Capital and Tourism Revenues is one of the important factors conducive to GNP in Turkey for the period considered, with a final discussion about the importance of a carefully design of the tourism related policies, especially in developing countries like Turkey.