Is Tourism the Optimal Public Investment to a Small Economy? A Case of Xiao-Liu-Qiu, Taiwan


  •  Wei-Lin Chen    

Abstract

Xiao-liu-qiu is one of the offshore islands of Taiwan, it has been promoted as a tourism destination and has attracted more and more tourists since last decade. The aim of this paper is to identify the key industries in the economy of Xiao-liu-qiu, within the context of tourism as a development strategy. To that end, the study utilized the bi-regional input-output analysis to answer the following questions: (1) what are the inter-industry relationship in the economy of Xiao-liu-qiu; (2) how are the economic effects in terms of output, employment, and wage in Xiao-liu-qiu; and (3) whether the economy structure and the multiplier effects had a change during the period 2006-2011 in Xiao-liu-qiu. Indices of economic structure, multipliers, and industry linkages were employed to estimate the importance of each industry, both individually and holistically. In sum, the results show that the economy structure did not have a significant change during the time. The fishery was still a vital industry in the whole economy, but the importance had a slight decrease over the past few years. Tourism characteristic industries were boosting during the period. However, not all of these industries could generate the relatively bigger multiplier effects in terms of output, employment, and wage. Transportation industry played a significant role in the economy when the tourism demand was growing. Both administrative and further research recommendations are given based on the findings.



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