Tourism as an economic development tool. Key factors

Tourism may serve as tool of economic development (ED). The aim of this article is to determine, through the analysis of determining factors identified in previous studies, which are the most important variables in channelling tourism growth into ED. Using a multivariate linear regression model, the main push and brake factors have been identified, for both developed and developing countries. It has been concluded that countries should maintain low initial provisions for CO₂ emissions, hospital beds, unemployment, energy without CO₂ emissions, and working population. It is also necessary to reduce conflict-related deaths. These results may be crucial in the decision-making processes implemented by policymakers and destination managers, given that they provide extremely useful information for the planning of their actions.