The impact of the national tourism system on the economic growth in Ukraine

Abstract

The paper aims at analyzing the impact of tourism on the economic growth in Ukraine considering its global significance and dynamic development. Tourism should be considered not as a separate phenomenon, but as a complex socio-economic-ecological system, i.e. the national tourism system (NTS). The study attempts to reveal the nature and determinants of the national tourism system impact on economic growth, and also empirically substantiates this in the Ukrainian context. Since the economic decisions require a huge amount of information and different models, a multivariate least square model has been proposed to determine the causal links between NTS and economic growth. The paper also presents the economic parameters such as Ukrainian GDP as a dependent variable, volume of domestic tourism consumption, income from international passenger carriage, international tourism expenditures in the country, the volume of services provided in temporary accommodation and catering establishments, and country’s income from NTS as independent variables. The paper is based on the 2000–2017 statistical data. It concludes that the increase of total NTS contribution to GDP is influenced by all considered factors except the international tourism expenditures in the country. A proposed econometric factor analysis model can be used as a tool to analyze and forecast the socio-economic NTS processes. The hypothesis of the NTS`s impact on economic growth is substantiated.