Tourism as an International Trade Category: Evidence from the European Union

The tourism industry is expanding globally, and currently represents the third largest sector of the EU economy. However, tourism as a category of international trade has mostly remained unstudied. This study meets that need and has fulfilled the following objectives: to assess the contribution of the tourism sector to GDP in the EU member states and its relevance in international trade, and to verify the applicability of theoretical concepts of international trade to the tourism sector. This study has revealed that the share of tourism in country’s GDP and exports is related to the existence of comparative advantages. In the context of Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin models, it has been shown that comparative advantages and factor endowments are key determinants of international trade, as the exports and imports of travel reflect them. Moreover, it has been determined that geographic location is also an important contributor to a nation’s comparative advantages. These results can provide a new insight into tourism as an important export industry for individual European economies. The original contribution of this paper is that it provides a complex overview of the contribution of international tourism to the EU economies, and it extends the empirical literature in verifications of the applicability the classic theories of international trade to the EU tourism sector.