The economic impact of international tourism on the Gozitan economy

Abstract

The economic impact of international tourism on the Gozitan economy has never been properly measured. We know from observation of economic activity in Gozo that tourist expenditure generates considerable income and employment in the island, but we do not have the data to quantify it properly. This paper attempts to shed some light on this question. Following this introductory section, we shall give a few basic statistics on tourist inflows in the Maltese Islands, with a view of placing Gozitan tourist inflows within this aggregate. Section 3 describes the methodology commonly used to measure the economic impact of tourism, and describes the few studies that have focused on the Maltese economy. Section 4 briefly describes a few multiplier studies applied to Maltese tourism, and utilises the results of one of these studies to produce rough approximations of the impact of tourism expenditure on the Gozitan economy. Section 5 concludes the study.