The socio-economic impact of regional tourism: an occupation-based modelling perspective from Sweden

Abstract

Traditional measurements of tourism’s economic impact refer to primary and secondary effects that are typically quantified through input–output (IO) methodology. From a sustainable regional development perspective, however, economic impact analyses are criticised for their one-dimensional analysis focussing mainly on growth-oriented effects represented by aggregates for output, employment, income or tax. Although existing literature comprises various extensions of IO models, the focus of these models is restricted to indicators at a high aggregate level. Thus, distributional or other socio-economically important aspects related to the tourism workforce are seldom discussed. In our approach to study tourism’s impacts over a nine-year period, we consider macro-and meso-level perspectives and disaggregate tourism’s impact on regional employment and income for particular occupational areas in the Swedish region of Jämtland. Results indicate weakening employment effects; relatively low but increasing income-inequalities; and increasing shares of elementary positions with precarious working conditions despite para-industrial initiatives from tourism institutions to develop the industry. By enhancing traditional tourism economic impact methodology, we hope that our approach is supportive in putting the tourism workforce at the heart of the regional development and tourism sustainability discourse.

Keywords:

• Socio-economic impact
• regional tourism
• input–output model
• occupation-based modelling
• income distribution
• Gini coefficient
• Lorenz curve

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Capture rate reflects the share of expenditures that accrues to the region. For manufactured goods sold by the wholesale and retail trade sector, imports are deducted. Thus, only retail margins and regionally produced goods accrue regionally, with a capture rate of approximately 38%. All services accrue regionally where producer and purchaser prices are equivalent. (Huhtala et al. 2010; Stynes 1999).

2 It is important to recall that large shares of demand for these two sectors are attributed to non-tourism consumption, i.e. by regional households. To gain further insight into tourism’s role in these sectors, regional Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSAs) should be consulted.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Östersund's municipality.

Notes on contributors

Kai Kronenberg

Kai Kronenberg is a Ph.D. student in Tourism Studies at Mid-Sweden University and the European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), based in Östersund, Sweden. His research interests include tourism economics, tourism and event impact analysis, and socio-economic development.

Matthias Fuchs

Matthias Fuchs, Ph.D., is Full Professor of Tourism Studies at Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden. His research areas include electronic tourism, business intelligence and data mining in tourism, customer-based destination brand equity modelling, critical tourism economics and impact analysis. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Information Technology & Tourism. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Travel Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Analysis and the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management. Matthias Fuchs has been the research track chair of the ENTER conference 2014 and the overall chair of the ENTER conference 2018.