Tourism as an Exit Strategy at Crisis Times

Angela Besana, Anna Maria Bagnasco

Department of Business, Economics and Law, IULM University, Milan, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/ojapps.2015.53009                

Abstract

The contemporary crisis is giving evidence of failing macroeconomic theories and policies, after decades of focusing on the aggregate domestic demand and the role of the public expenditure. The contemporary crisis has shown the weakness of fiscal policy. With very low interest rates, the monetary policy does not seem to provide an alternative exit strategy out of the crisis, too. In this paper we discuss the hypothesis that GDP can still be a reliable estimate of growth. Nevertheless, at crisis times, only if the focus is on the foreign demand like International Tourism Receipts and Exports, and Exports can be an exit strategy. One component of Exports and International Tourism Receipts are worthy of attention. Thanks to a cluster analysis of per year variations of International Tourism Receipts (ITRs), GDP and Exports (World Bank Database) from 2007 to 2011, average positive variations of GDPs are matching with positive ITRs and Exports for “clusters” of countries. Performances of Europe and USA are worse than China, Brazil, India and South Africa and these continents and countries are separated in two different clusters. This result can be related to an increase of trade in emerging economies more than in mature ones, whose exit out of the crisis is much more demanding. The research confirms that Tourism and Exports are having an impact on the growth at different intensities (Europe and America vs. Asia) at crisis times.

Keywords

Macroeconomics, International Tourism Receipts, GDP, Export, Cluster Analysis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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