The Influence of Tourism on Gross Domestic Product

Do you know that 10.4% of global Gross Domestic Product is created by Tourism? Tourism is one of the biggest income for most of the countries around the World. Every year countries are trying to get more interest from foreigners with their natural or human-made tourism sides. Historical places, seasides, hotels, forests, national parks, cultural and sports events, art galleries and museums. Every place attracts tourists has big potential for employment. Every touristic place is also an attraction for the new establishment also that means from the bottom to top will be needed for new employees. Every year tourism places are being invested by new establishments. Every establishment needs new employees to continue running.

Every day they work is more contribution to the economy, not just employment. They contribute to the Gross Domestic Product of the country, employment, different variety of sectors such as transportation, accommodation, food, etc. World Travel & Tourism Council’s studies show that the tourism industry created 10.4% of global GDP. Also, numbers showed that 319 million employments have been made by the sector which is 10% of the global employment. The tourism industry, which supports 10% of the jobs on earth is also the creator of 20% of the jobs on our planet. In this industry, every country has a piece of course. Some of them are taking the big pieces with their investments and establishments and some of them are trying to make their piece bigger. Effects such as the attractiveness of the touristic areas or the currency of the country will be the determinative effects for the tourist flow around the World. Countries that can use these effects in the right way will make their pieces bigger and continue to have the advantages of the Tourism Industry. Spain can be a good example for the countries who are having really big contributions to the Tourism Industry.

Spain is one of the biggest attracting countries for international visitors by 83 million visitors. Their Tourism Industry is well established and working pretty good. Natural effects like smooth weather, romantic seasides and more than 40 heritage sites are being the attraction points for the national and international tourists. As they attract the tourists more, their economy gets bigger in a parallel way. Between 2010-2018 years Tourism was the second industry grows fastest with 3.38% and it became the biggest sector for contributing to GDP by 16%. It contributed to the GDP by 119 billion euros and keeps contributing more. It also contributes to employment. Every year the country having new jobs and new employments by tourism. Every new establishment or every new tourist attraction helping them to have new positions requiring a new employee. From the top to the bottom of every establishment it means new employees.

Hotels need employees to manage, serve, clean, restaurants need employees to serve or cook, transportation firms need drivers, a museum needs managers and security. This makes a huge employment area and creates new jobs. With the activity of the tourism industry 6.1 million jobs had been created and it directly supported 118,454,000 jobs around the World. However, it can also be affected by sudden events. For example, terrorist attacks can reduce the attraction. So the government should finish the safety deficiencies and this is an example of the supported jobs by tourism, security, police forces. Employment areas are connected to each other, to develop the tourism country should develop other areas also with investments and employments, The private sector also should develop themselves. They have to give more qualified service to the tourists and that depends on the education of the employees. So it creates the schools which educate the employees in the tourism area. We can go one more step further every time, that schools need qualified educationalists and other employees to maintain the ability to be a school.

In 2015 tourism made 13% of the total employment in Spain with 2.5 million employments. Tourism took over the construction industry’s place by employment rates and it is the first industry which employes most by numbers. It is the most important employment source. Even it is mostly a temporary contract the numbers are notable. Contracts are temporary because of the seasonality of tourism, which means employment numbers change between summer and winter too much. As an example in the first period of 2017 2.660.915 people working in the tourism sector, however, 3 months later it decreased by 141.000. By the last year, the number of people working with indefinite contracts got higher by 6.7% against the grew by 2.7% on temporarily workers. 35.2% of the employees were working temporarily in spring, nearly 1% less than at the same time as the last year. On this topic Spain also has an advantage: with its smooth climate, they don’t suffer from seasonality tourism. Their touristic places are attractive mostly at any time of a year.

The most attractive area is Catalonia in Spain. Every year it is visited by an average of 19 million international visitors and 5 million Spanish people. Also, it has the highest number of employees in the tourism industry by 457.944 people. Andalusia follows with the second place by 433.853 employees – a 7.5% increase by the numbers at the same time as the last year. Madrid attracts less people than the Balearic and Canary Islands, however, it is the third area that employes most numbers for the tourism area by 400.000 against 169.00 and 244.400 people.

Since the late 20th century, sport and tourism industries didn’t stop getting bigger in Spain. After the Barcelona Olympics in 92 as a boost for the sports industry is also been a boost for the tourism industry and they are the most powerful industries in the country. They even resisted the crisis times. Then they met and continued together. After meeting and getting upgraded sports tourism got very famous. Sports such as climbing, fishing, golf, hill walking, rowing, sailing, scuba diving, tennis, wind surfing, skiing, hunting are the basic tourist-attracting sports activities. Spain has a huge potential with its cost lines and natural habitat to make these sports.

The numbers have shown that 10.1 million international visitors visited Spain participated in various sports events, which made Spain earn more than 12 million euros in one year. This type of tourism is also not getting effected by seasonality, it decreases the effects and attracts tourists not only summer, in every period of a year. In the last Barcelona Marathon, 20.100 people attended and 50% of the people were international tourists. Also in another marathon held in Valencia, 31% of the people were international visitors. Football teams such as Barcelona and Real Madrid attract people every year. Some foreigner sports clubs are making agreements with these clubs to organize training camps in their facilities and this also attracts different international visitors and it gives a chance to Spain for welcoming elite athletes from other countries. Football matches, motorcycling races and we can give more example than this are getting more and more attraction each day in Spain.

Tourism helped to see the right way to correct some disparities that affected the economy in the last years in Spain. 11% of the balance is a conclusion of the higher surplus caused by the tourism industry in Spain. Spain is the home for 400.000 companies working in different areas, such as hotels, food industry, transportation, renting firms, tourist agencies in the tourism sector. The industry has very variations such as very big operators or many small companies. The size of the business is important, cause it is connected with features that make business productivity. Big establishments are 30% more efficient than small ones, both big and small establishments in Spain are more efficient than European firms. Spain has a bigger portion of big companies, the efficient difference for the tourism industry in Spain against Europe’s is notable, close to 20%. The regulation of the companies is better than the other parts of Europe and they are having the taste of it for now. They are the leading country on tourism in Europe also they are benefiting from the security problems in their competing areas like the Middle East. They are also competing in the global area, “They are ahead of France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, USA, Australia and Italy” showed by the 2017 ranking of 136 countries by the World Economic Forum.

Technological upgrades had a notable effect on the industry in the last years. New Technologies created new establishments working in the digital arena, which have an extremely overtake of an important piece of the industry value chain. The effect has been felt at the first steps of the purchase cycle. In some situations, it reduced employment. The agencies are more into online sellings, for now, they don’t need more influencers anymore. Their work is easier than the old times, in a website putting their tours and making it online is enough to make them reach to the customers. However, it also created new employment areas. Digital professionals working on websites are being more employed now, new companies which gather all the tourist agencies from around the World on online grounds are another area of employment. They try to give the customers the best prices and the best travel fit for them. Digitalisation also assisted in bigger accessibility for the common economy, by making the range bigger for the services active. Even though it is helpful, the common economy has some notable challenges, it can leave customers unprotected or can make them see the unfair competitive establishments as the establishments found before in the market have more strict laws than new ones in their culture. A more defined law system is really important for the tourism sector.

In conclusion, tourism is one of the biggest income and employment source for the countries. It creates new job areas and opens the way for new establishments. With the attraction sides like historical places, cultural areas, seasides it is helping the country's economy and it gets a bigger piece from the economy pie when it is improved. Spain is a country that uses the advantages of its tourism potential form any possible ways. Historical sides, sports events, cultural areas, museums, vocational places are getting improved and invested more and more every day and it is getting more effecting the economy and also the employees. As mentioned above tourism is creating 16% of the GDP and 13% of the employment in the country. It’s contribution even gets bigger every year with the investments. 400.000 companies found in the only tourism industry and 2.5 million employments made in a year. So the contribution to tourism development to employment in Spain is huge.