The socio-economic impact of regional tourism: an occupation-based modelling perspective from Sweden

Abstract

Traditional measurements of tourism’s economic impact refer to primary and secondary effects that are typically quantified through input–output (IO) methodology. From a sustainable regional development perspective, however, economic impact analyses are criticised for their one-dimensional analysis focussing mainly on growth-oriented effects represented by aggregates for output, employment, income or tax. Although existing literature comprises various extensions of IO models, the focus of these models is restricted to indicators at a high aggregate level. Thus, distributional or other socio-economically important aspects related to the tourism workforce are seldom discussed. In our approach to study tourism’s impacts over a nine-year period, we consider macro-and meso-level perspectives and disaggregate tourism’s impact on regional employment and income for particular occupational areas in the Swedish region of Jämtland. Results indicate weakening employment effects; relatively low but increasing income-inequalities; and increasing shares of elementary positions with precarious working conditions despite para-industrial initiatives from tourism institutions to develop the industry. By enhancing traditional tourism economic impact methodology, we hope that our approach is supportive in putting the tourism workforce at the heart of the regional development and tourism sustainability discourse.