The impacts of tourism on economic growth and development: the case of the main Colombian destinations

This paper analyses the effects of tourism on the economic growth and development, focusing on the main tourism regions of Colombia: Antioquia, Bolivar, Bogota, Magdalena and San Andres-Providencia of Colombia. For the analysis, the study uses annual data from 1990 to 2006. Firstly, the work presents a quantitative exercise describing the evolution of the participation of the tourism sector in the different regions and its contribution to economic growth. The analysis shows an increasing participation of tourism in the economic growth of each region during the periods 1990-1999 and 2003-2006 and a decresing in the intermediate period. Secondly, the study uses cointegration analysis to evaluate the existence of VEC among real GDP per capita, tourism expenditures and real exchange rates. We show that the causality relationship is positive and unidirectional for all the regions but the values of elasticities are considerable different. This implies that a change in tourism expenditure will produce different effects on the economic growth of the regions.