Spillover Index Approach in Investigating the Linkage between International Tourism and Economic growth in Central and Eastern European Countries

The present study analyses the relationship between economic growth and tourism growth at the level of Central and East European countries, using the spillover indices approach. Based on the monthly data obtained for the period 2000–2019, the analysis of this paper presents certain empirical results. Firstly, the relationship economic growth-international tourism grow is not stable over time, both from the point of view of its size and its direction, which suggests that the specific activities of international tourism contribute to the economic growth and hypotheses according to which international tourism growth causes economic growth are time-dependent. Secondly, the relationship economic growth-international tourism growth is dependent on certain major events, such as the economic and financial crisis that started in 2008 and the debt crises from 2010. The results obtained show that the impact of these events influences the direction of the relationship between international tourism and economic growth which becomes more accentuated during the economic growth periods.