Tourism and regional growth in the Carpathian Euroregion – a panel data approach

Abstract

The paper focuses on the identification of the relationship between tourism and economic growth of the Carpathian Euroregion located across seven borders of Central and Eastern European countries (Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, and Romania). By analysing the relationship between tourism and economic growth within the region, the paper quantifies the positive impact of tourism on GDP growth per capita. To test for the existence and strength of such a relationship, we use a panel econometric model based on conditional β-convergence. The results confirm the tourism-led growth hypothesis, and determine the extent of regional disparities in tourism activities between different parts of the Carpathian Euroregion, observed during the increase in tourist attractiveness between 2005 and 2015. For Ukraine, where political instability has led to a decrease in the total number of visiting tourists, we show that the dynamics for its part of the Carpathian Euroregion are markedly different, as it has benefited from the changing structure of tourist flows.

Framing a Regional Spatial Development Perspective: The Relation between Health and Regional Performance

“…Various factors stimulating regional growth are singled out in publications on this topic. In (Vyrostova et al, 2021;Pimonenko et al, 2021), this growth factor is called tourism and focuses on researching the relationship between tourism and economic growth. With this study, the authors confirm the hypothesis that tourism positively affects the growth of the territory's GDP.…”