Thank you for your staying! An analysis of the economic impact of tourism in Japanese prefectures

Abstract

A growing body of literature investigates the bi-univocal relationship between tourism and economic growth. Even if sub-national studies are deemed relevant, these are rare: we provide a first analysis of such relationship for Japanese regions and prefectures, using Granger Causality tests in a Bayesian VAR model, from 2007 to 2014. Both the tourism-led growth and the economic-led tourism hypotheses are supported in 4 out of 8 regions and in 19 out of 47 prefectures (either univocally and/or bi-univocally): it is possible to use tourism as a policy instrument to stimulate economic growth, even if regional discrepancies are to be expected.