2.13
Impact of Tourism Development on the Regional Economy:
Specific Focus on the Tourist Money Flow
관광개발이 지역개발에 미치는 효과분석: 관광지출흐름을 중심으로(RR96-13) Sung-Jae Choo and Soo-Wook Lee
1996. 12․146 pages․Korean
This study aims to analyze direct and indirect economic impacts of tourism development on the regional economy and to draw some policy implications for utilizing tourism as a tool for vitalizing underdeveloped areas. It adopts the concept of tourist money flow, which includes a series of money flows beginning with tourists' payment for room, board and shopping, followed by tourist companies' expenditure for material and service purchase, wage, utilities, rent, tax and so forth, and by tourism workers' expenses for living and savings.
This study tries to identify the amount and geographical extent of tourist money flow and explain the mechanisms to bring out the results.
Interview surveys using the formatted questionnaires have been conducted to the tourist companies, workers and tourists in three sample areas representative typical types of tourism development. They include two resort areas, old/steady and new/developing ones, and one hot spring area.
Analysis begins with tracking down the path and spatial characteristics of the first-, second-, and third-tier tourist money flows. Based on these general features, total annual sum of tourist money flow has been estimated for each area by its geographical extent: Total annual amount reaches 16 to 36 billion won, excluding the portion belonging to the tourist companies, 10.5 to 27.5 billion won flows by such paths as material and service purchase, workers' expenses, and so on, among which 68 to 74 percent remain within the province where the tourism facilities are located.
It is interpreted that the size of total money flow amount depends on the degree of development and investment, size and diversity of tourism facilities, tourist income characteristics, etc. The geographical extent of material and service linkage is determined by such factors as the duration of tourism development and subsequent stability of material suppliers, and the degree of influence of
Seoul or large metropolises nearby, while that of tourism workers is determined mainly by the degree of their settling-down in these areas.
A tourism development model in terms of its impact on regional economy has been designed by integrating the study results. The results enable us to draw a conclusion that tourism development has huge potential to promote the regional economy, but the size and geographical extent of the impact depend largely on the duration of the development and the amount of investment.
