A qualitative dynamic analysis of the relationship between tourism and human development

This study analyzes the dynamic relationship between tourism and human development in a sample of 123 countries between 1995–2019 using a symbolic time series methodological analysis, with the number of international tourist arrivals per capita as the tourism measurement variable and the Human Development Index as the development measurement variable. The objective was to determine if a higher level of tourism specialization is related to a higher level of economic development. The definition of economic regime is used and the concept of the distance between the dynamic trajectories of the different countries analyzed is introduced to create a minimum spanning tree. In this way, groups of countries are identified that display similar behavior in terms of tourism specialization and levels of human development. The results suggest that countries with a high level of tourism specialization have a higher level of development as compared to those in which tourism has a lower specific weight. However, the largest group of countries identified is characterized by low levels of tourism specialization and economic development, which appears to translate into a poverty trap. Therefore, policies related to tourism activity expansion should be created since higher tourism levels have been linked to higher levels of human development. In the case of less developed countries, however, these projects should be financed by international organizations so that these countries can escape the poverty trap in which they are currently found.