ICT, Tourism Industry and Economic Growth

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to investigate the effects of ICT pending in tourism industry on attracting tourists. Second, it examines the effect of ICT on economic growth. A data set for 70 developed and developing countries are used to estimate empirical models over the period 2000–2006. Results of the study show that in developed countries, ICT pending in tourism industry has more influence than the developing countries on economic growth. Furthermore, in both developed and developing countries, attracting tourists are increased whenever the ratio of ICT pending to GDP is increased. Moreover, GDP per capita, openness, human capital, and education spending per capita have also positive and significant effect on tourist attraction.