The impact of tourism on economic growth of some Western Balkan countries during Covid-19 period

Tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy. Most countries are relying on it for their economic growth, including Western Balkan countries which are investing in tourism and considering it as key-sector for their development. In the last decade, several initiatives have been undertaken by national governments, such as reviews of tourism strategic plans, tourism communication campaigns, and the creation of national tourism brands. EU governments, airlines, consultants and researchers all expect that the travel and tourism sector is entering in a new era. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global economic recession and increased social inequalities including western Balkan tourism. In this study, it was aimed to measure the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry. The relationship between tourism and growth economic for each country was estimated using vector auto-regression (VAR) based on data from 1995 to 2020 for Albania, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Montenegro. After implementing the model, the results of this study shows that the increase of GDP causes the increase of the number of arrivals on Albania and the increase of arrivals causes the increase of GDP on Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia.