We provide an empirical assessment of the relationship between tourism specialisation and economic growth by updating the findings of previous papers written on this issue. We use data for more than 150 countries covering different time spans between 1980 and 2005. Contrary to previous findings...

We contribute to the debate on whether tourism should be considered a discipline or just a field of study. By re-arranging Hirst's four criteria (1974) to define a primary form of knowledge (a discipline), we affirm that tourism economics can be considered an established economic discipline in...