－67－ Measuring the Economic Impact of Tourism in China

In the past two decades, both inbound tourism and domestic tourism have achieved sustainable growth in China. Tourism has grown to a significant size, and it contributes substantially to the Chinese economy. However, the analysis of its economic impact is still a neglected issue in China（Xu: 1999）. This paper tries to measure the economic impact of tourism, evaluate the contribution of tourism to the national economy, and find some policy implications. The impact includes direct and indirect increase in production, labor income, employment, imports, indirect tax etc. through the injection of tourist expenditures into the economy. To catch both the direct and indirect impact of tourism, the paper first constructs a 48 sector social accounting matrix（SAM）for tourism analysis. Then the SAM multipliers are calculated. The total direct and indirect impact of tourist expenditures is the product of the multipliers and the primary injection of tourist expenditures. In order to strengthen the communication between China and the rest of the world and to earn hard currencies to facilitate imports of technology and facilities, after 1978 the Chinese government made inbound tourism a priority, as many developing countries wer