Spatial Variation in Tourism: An Industrial View

This paper attempts to empirically document the spatial variations in employment and revenue for selected businesses in the tourism industries of 20 states under study. Employment and revenue figures were classified by US Census SIC codes, and separated into two classifications: direct and supporting tourist services. In states with large economies, a diversified economic base frequently minimizes tourism's proportional importance to statewide service economy employment; however, in many states with small economic and population bases, tourism employment made a significant proportional contribution to the service labor market. States with large economies have high absolute revenue in both the direct and supporting tourist services due to large-scale economic activity and linkage. In states with smaller economies, absolute revenue in tourist services is frequently lower due to reduced population and economic size. As statewide revenue in direct tourist services increases, revenue in supporting tourist services tends to increase in a similar fashion, illustrating the proportionality between the direct and supporting tourist services