Tourism as a Significant Contributor to Economic Development: Evidence from South Asian Economies

Abstract

Tourism has become the world vibrant sector with its multidimensional impacts on the economies especially for developing nations. Study in hand was conducted by taking data of four South Asian economies i.e. Pakistan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, which have good potential for the tourism due to their diverse geography, culture and traditions. Time series data set for the years 1985 to 2015 were employed for analysis. It was observed that all selected variables were stationary on the first difference. The study findings revealed that the number of international tourist arrival in India is greater as compare to other three selected countries. The results of long run co integration indicated that variable, number of tourist arrival has significant effect on the GDP of all countries. Overall results of the study validate the hypothesis that tourism has positive impact on the economic development of a country.