The role of tourism for economic growth and development. An overview

Many studies seem to testify the importance of tourism as a driver for growth and, therefore, they give confidence that tourism can stimulate social transformation and economic development. On this point, however, a contrasting point of view raises several doubts and leaves open a very interesting debate. Two main issues are under the attention of researchers. They concern the need to understand mechanisms that lead from tourism development to growth and the potential of tourism to become a tool that spurs socioeconomic development. The present contribution presents the main elements of the aforementioned debate. It first provides an analysis of the relationship between the concepts of growth and development. Then it focuses on the role of tourism in both growth and development.