Infrastructure Factors and Their Impact Measuring on Growth on Tourism Economy in Iranian Provinces

The impacts of the tourism industry on economic growth can be divided into two categories: direct and indirect (spillover) effects. In the field of tourism, direct impacts have been the subject of many studies but the analysis of spillover effects, particularly the effects from tourism infrastructure development, have received less attention. This study, with an analytical approach and along with examining the quantitative methods and analysis of the spillover effects of various variables affecting the development of the tourism industry, has investigated these impacts for each the variables and in each province. For this purpose, it has used spatial econometric models. The results confirmed the existence of spatial fixed effects and was applied Spatial Durbin Model (based on Lagrange coefficient test). The results show a positive and significant impact of transport infrastructure variables (road, rail, air) and travel agencies on the growth of value added in the tourism industry. Investigation of the spillover effects of infrastructure variables on growth of value added has shown that, except for Accommodation services, other tourism infrastructure variables have negative spillover effects for neighboring provinces, and also have positive spillover effects for other (non-neighbor) provinces. The negative spillover effects on the tourism growth of the neighbor provinces are due to competition impact and relative stability in the number of domestic tourists, and the positive spillover effects on non-neighbor provinces are due to factors such as the development of multi-purpose trips and increased market access.