Tourism is playing a big role in the economic recovery underway around the world, says several studies
The role of tourism as an important aspect of the global economy has rarely been doubted as most countries say tourism accounts for as much as a tenth of their GDP. Now, studies are emerging that show that tourism is also playing a big role in the economic recovery underway around the world.
A recent study by University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy has found that tourist-centric cities that benefit from leisure travel are recovering from the pandemic at a much quicker rate than others.
The study, released to the media by the university, says that tourism hotspots in the United States such as Orlando and Honolulu are reaping more hotel nights, and the resulting tax income, than other large cities across the country – more so than cities that also rely on business travel, which remains stalled more than two years after the onset of Covid-19.
“People will pay a lot for leisure travel, especially in traditional leisure destinations. Meanwhile, on the commercial travel side, now that meetings can be done via Zoom and people are less excited to travel to certain kinds of destinations, you actually have the opposite,” Justin Marlowe, University of Chicago professor who co-authored the research with Tom Hazinski, was quoted in media reports.
According to the research, cities that previously had a thriving business and convention clientele to support leisure travel were lagging behind other cities that more heavily leaned toward straight tourism.
“I think part of what may be delaying the recovery in business travel is the economy, with a lot of people predicting a recession,” Richard Schwam, a municipal-bond analyst at AllianceBernstein LP, was also cited in media report. “But it still seems to me that the type of business travel where you’re trying to go out and get more business, which always seems to me like the primary driver of business travel, is hard to replace with Zoom,” adds Schwam.
