Managing Regional Development: Empirical Evidence on Tourism Contribution

Tourism is one of the greatest sources of economic growth and is detected by many undeveloped and developing countries as the only way-out for economic prosperity. This study argues the inevitable relationship between tourism and regional development with an aim to investigate the potential of successful contribution of tourism to regional development in the south-west part of Macedonia. In particular, it makes an attempt to explore and compare the NUTS3 regions from the perspective of tourism potentials for regional development. This empirical evidence reports on analyses based on stylized facts obtained from secondary data. The outcomes point to the fact that the South-West planning region is the leading statistical region in Macedonia when referring tourism and regional development issues. Yet, despite its enormous potentials, tourism still has not reached its peak point. So, the paper strongly recommends this evidence as a good example for boosting regional development through tourism application. Furthermore, it urges the need for identifying effective framework for mitigating the up-to-date modest results and creating sound public policies. Additionally, the contribution of this paper lies in the fact that it enriches the poorly-developed empirical academic work within this scientific area in Macedonia