The European tourism regions: location and economic significance

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries, playing a key role in the economic growth of many European countries, with direct and indirect impacts on other economic sectors through multiplier effects. The national authorities are aware of its role and have given important steps attempting to influence the number of visitors, the timing and duration of visits. Nevertheless, little is known about the relative importance of tourism on a regional basis and little has been done regarding the creation of a truly common european tourism policy. This paper aims at providing an analysis of european regions regarding the importance tourism activities have on their economic structure. For analysis purposes, we consider regions Nuts II from a group of European Union western countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Belgium, The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Ireland and Finland. We start by outlining a quantified analysis of tourism activities structure in each country by building a weighted tourist location index in order to provide a ranking of regions by the importance those activities have on each country’s economic structure. Finally, we analyse the basic trends of tourism policies international framework by focusing the main vectors of national policies, in particular, promotion, direct investment, subsidies, labour market intervention and regulation