Investigating the Impact of Investment on Value Added of Tourism Industry in the Framework of Regional Economy: A Case Study of Khorasan Razavi Province

Today, the tourism industry is one of the main and stable foundations of the world economy, which can affect other economic and cultural activities by creating the maximum amount of added value. The tourism industry in Khorasan Razavi province can plan and use the province's domestic and foreign investment to develop this sector, grow production, create added value, and increase employment and income sources in the region. The purpose of this study is to investigate the amount of added value created by the main tourism activities of the province (each of the 12 tourism sectors). Another purpose is to analyze the effect of increasing investment on the value-added of the tourism industry. For these purposes, the updated input-output table of Khorasan-Razavi province (2018) has been used. The results were analyzed by considering two scenarios (proportional investment in all economic sectors of the tourism industry together, and investment in each economic sector of the tourism industry separately). The results showed that if investment in all sectors of tourism, increases by 100 billion rials simultaneously -in total equivalent to 1200 billion rials- (as analytical scenarios), 851718 million rials will be added to the value-added of province's economic activities; Of this amount, 95.5% of value-added creation is directly related to the 12 sectors of the tourism industry. The most direct effect of investment in value creation is related to the wholesale and retail sector, the arts, entertainment, recreation sector and Travel agency services sector, respectively. Also, if investment increases by 100 billion rials in each of the tourism sectors separately, maximum direct value-added creation, results from the "arts, entertainment, recreation" sector. The most important suggestions of this study were, Investing in forming groups and institutions in the province to produce, promote and starting various artistic, recreational and sports activities, investing in designing travel packages on specific topics in the field of travel agency services and providing accommodation services based on travellers' tastes.