The causality relationship between tourism income and gross domestic product for the period of 1980 - 2014: An example of Turkey

Tourism-led growth hypothesis has been investigated in several domestic and international studies. However, there is no consensus on the results of these studies since different countries with different data and different approaches are used for each study. In this study, the causality relationship between tourism and economic growth of Turkey researched by using annual data of tourism income and GDP between 1980 and 2014, and the role of tourism sector in economic growth are investigated. ARDL bounds test and Granger causality test are used for this study. According to the results, both short and long term relationships between tourism income and GDP are found, and there is also a unidirectional causality relationship from tourism income to GDP. The results also indicate that tourism-led growth hypothesis is valid, and the policies targeting development of tourism sector are efficient in both short and long term for Turkey.