Country Economic Memorandum for Sao Tome and Principe - Background Note 11 : What is the Potential and Hindrances for the Tourism Sector in Sao Tome and Príncipe?


== Abstract ==

The purpose of this paper is to             empirically evaluate the tourism performance of STP with             respect to the main determinants that have been found in the             literature. Tourism is clearly a comparative advantage of             STP and already an important economic activity, however, STP             is far from the characterization of a tourism-dependent             small economy. Tourism represents 10.8 percent of GDP and             the ratio between international inbound tourists and             population is at 14.5 percent. For a summary of how STP             relates to other destinations. This puts STP as the twelfth             country in terms of size of direct contribution of the             tourism sector to GDP and the eighteenth in terms of the             ratio between tourists and population. Using data from             different sources, this note analyzes STP’s tourism-related             characteristics and uses different empirical tools to             evaluate them vis-à-vis its peers. Economic literature shows             that tourism demand is affected by price and income but also             by a host of other factors such as air connectivity,             language, and culture among others. First, there is an             extensive research agenda on measuring price and income             elasticities of tourism, which is specific for different             types of tourism destination. Second, there is a myriad of             characteristics that are found to be important to the             tourism industry, such as remoteness, language, culture, air             connectivity, bilateral trade, etc. More recently, there has             been many studies emphasizing the role of digital media and             digital presence1 as a key determinant of tourist decisions.


== Original document ==

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

* [http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/282671562911496233/Country-Economic-Memorandum-Background-Note-11-What-is-the-potential-and-hindrances-for-the-tourism-sector-in-Sao-Tome-and-Príncipe http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/282671562911496233/Country-Economic-Memorandum-Background-Note-11-What-is-the-potential-and-hindrances-for-the-tourism-sector-in-Sao-Tome-and-Príncipe],
: [http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32140 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32140] under the license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo