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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Writing

Last updated on: May 21, 2023

Literary Analysis Essay - Ultimate Guide By Professionals

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Dec 3, 2019

A literary analysis essay specifically examines and evaluates a piece of literature or a literary work. It also understands and explains the links between the small parts to their whole information.

It is important for students to understand the meaning and the true essence of literature to write a literary essay.

One of the most difficult assignments for students is writing a literary analysis essay. It can be hard to come up with an original idea or find enough material to write about. You might think you need years of experience in order to create a good paper, but that's not true.

This blog post will show you how easy it can be when you follow the steps given here.Writing such an essay involves the breakdown of a book into small parts and understanding each part separately. It seems easy, right?

Trust us, it is not as hard as good book reports but it may also not be extremely easy. You will have to take into account different approaches and explain them in relation with the chosen literary work.

It is a common high school and college assignment and you can learn everything in this blog.

Continue reading for some useful tips with an example to write a literary analysis essay that will be on point. You can also explore our detailed article on writing an analytical essay .

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What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

A literary analysis essay is an important kind of essay that focuses on the detailed analysis of the work of literature.

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to explain why the author has used a specific theme for his work. Or examine the characters, themes, literary devices , figurative language, and settings in the story.

This type of essay encourages students to think about how the book or the short story has been written. And why the author has created this work.

The method used in the literary analysis essay differs from other types of essays. It primarily focuses on the type of work and literature that is being analyzed.

Mostly, you will be going to break down the work into various parts. In order to develop a better understanding of the idea being discussed, each part will be discussed separately.

The essay should explain the choices of the author and point of view along with your answers and personal analysis.

How To Write A Literary Analysis Essay

So how to start a literary analysis essay? The answer to this question is quite simple.

The following sections are required to write an effective literary analysis essay. By following the guidelines given in the following sections, you will be able to craft a winning literary analysis essay.

Introduction

The aim of the introduction is to establish a context for readers. You have to give a brief on the background of the selected topic.

It should contain the name of the author of the literary work along with its title. The introduction should be effective enough to grab the reader’s attention.

In the body section, you have to retell the story that the writer has narrated. It is a good idea to create a summary as it is one of the important tips of literary analysis.

Other than that, you are required to develop ideas and disclose the observed information related to the issue. The ideal length of the body section is around 1000 words.

To write the body section, your observation should be based on evidence and your own style of writing.

It would be great if the body of your essay is divided into three paragraphs. Make a strong argument with facts related to the thesis statement in all of the paragraphs in the body section.

Start writing each paragraph with a topic sentence and use transition words when moving to the next paragraph.

Summarize the important points of your literary analysis essay in this section. It is important to compose a short and strong conclusion to help you make a final impression of your essay.

Pay attention that this section does not contain any new information. It should provide a sense of completion by restating the main idea with a short description of your arguments. End the conclusion with your supporting details.

You have to explain why the book is important. Also, elaborate on the means that the authors used to convey her/his opinion regarding the issue.

For further understanding, here is a downloadable literary analysis essay outline. This outline will help you structure and format your essay properly and earn an A easily.

DOWNLOADABLE LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE (PDF)

Types of Literary Analysis Essay

Close reading - This method involves attentive reading and detailed analysis. No need for a lot of knowledge and inspiration to write an essay that shows your creative skills.
Theoretical - In this type, you will rely on theories related to the selected topic.
Historical - This type of essay concerns the discipline of history. Sometimes historical analysis is required to explain events in detail.
Applied - This type involves analysis of a specific issue from a practical perspective.
Comparative - This type of writing is based on when two or more alternatives are compared

Examples of Literary Analysis Essay

Examples are great to understand any concept, especially if it is related to writing. Below are some great literary analysis essay examples that showcase how this type of essay is written.

A ROSE FOR EMILY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE GREAT GATSBY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

If you do not have experience in writing essays, this will be a very chaotic process for you. In that case, it is very important for you to conduct good research on the topic before writing.

There are two important points that you should keep in mind when writing a literary analysis essay.

First, remember that it is very important to select a topic in which you are interested. Choose something that really inspires you. This will help you to catch the attention of a reader.

The selected topic should reflect the main idea of writing. In addition to that, it should also express your point of view as well.

Another important thing is to draft a good outline for your literary analysis essay. It will help you to define a central point and division of this into parts for further discussion.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Literary analysis essays are mostly based on artistic works like books, movies, paintings, and other forms of art. However, generally, students choose novels and books to write their literary essays.

Some cool, fresh, and good topics and ideas are listed below:

Role of the Three Witches in flaming Macbeth’s ambition.
Analyze the themes of the Play Antigone,
Discuss Ajax as a tragic hero.
The Judgement of Paris: Analyze the Reasons and their Consequences.
Oedipus Rex: A Doomed Son or a Conqueror?
Describe the Oedipus complex and Electra complex in relation to their respective myths.
Betrayal is a common theme of Shakespearean tragedies. Discuss
Identify and analyze the traits of history in T.S Eliot’s ‘Gerontion’.
Analyze the theme of identity crisis in The Great Gatsby.
Analyze the writing style of Emily Dickinson.

If you are still in doubt then there is nothing bad in getting professional writers’ help.

We at 5StarEssays.com can help you get a custom paper as per your specified requirements with our do essay for me service.

Our essay writers will help you write outstanding literary essays or any other type of essay. Such as compare and contrast essays, descriptive essays, rhetorical essays. We cover all of these.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What should a literary analysis essay include.

A good literary analysis essay must include a proper and in-depth explanation of your ideas. They must be backed with examples and evidence from the text. Textual evidence includes summaries, paraphrased text, original work details, and direct quotes.

What are the 4 components of literary analysis?

Here are the 4 essential parts of a literary analysis essay;

No literary work is explained properly without discussing and explaining these 4 things.

How do you start a literary analysis essay?

Start your literary analysis essay with the name of the work and the title. Hook your readers by introducing the main ideas that you will discuss in your essay and engage them from the start.

How do you do a literary analysis?

In a literary analysis essay, you study the text closely, understand and interpret its meanings. And try to find out the reasons behind why the author has used certain symbols, themes, and objects in the work.

Why is literary analysis important?

It encourages the students to think beyond their existing knowledge, experiences, and belief and build empathy. This helps in improving the writing skills also.

What is the fundamental characteristic of a literary analysis essay?

Interpretation is the fundamental and important feature of a literary analysis essay. The essay is based on how well the writer explains and interprets the work.

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Cordon. is a published author and writing specialist. He has worked in the publishing industry for many years, providing writing services and digital content. His own writing career began with a focus on literature and linguistics, which he continues to pursue. Cordon is an engaging and professional individual, always looking to help others achieve their goals.

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How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

Who is telling the story?
How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Literary Essay

Literary essay generator.

Part of submissions you give in school are essays. Essay writing is introduced in school is largely due to prepare a student or individual for work which also involves writing essays of sorts. The practice of writing essays also develops critical thinking which is highly needed in any future job.

There are many different elements involved in writing an effective essay . Examples in the page provide further information regarding how an essay is made and formed. Scroll down the page in order to view additional essay samples which may help you in making your own literary essay.

Literary Analysis Essay Outline Template

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Student Literary Sample

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Literary Analysis Example

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Formal Literary Sample

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How to Write a Literary Essay

In writing a literary essay, it is important to know how to write a essay and take note of the following:

Make sure you read and understand the plot of the chosen material which includes the characters involved.
Take note of sections in the material and write down reactions
Draw a character map or sequential events of the story.
Review the notes indicated and decide what question you want an answer to regarding the material you have read.

Essay examples in Doc seen on the page give added information on how an essay is structured. Feel free to browse the page and click on any individual download link button below a sample that you like.

What Is the Format for a Literary Essay?

As with all standard formats in literature, a literary essay has basically an introduction, body, and essay conclusion .

The introduction states the main point of your essay
The body cites examples that support your thesis
Conclusion is a summary of main points in relation to your thesis

Short essay examples are shown on the page to help you better understand the basics in writing an essay. These samples are all available for download via the download link button below each sample.

Persuasive Essay Example

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Short Literary Sample

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Free Literary Essay

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What Is the Purpose of a Literary Essay?

Literary essays are often made to convey a message. For students, it is a way to gauge their knowledge of books or stories they read. Sample essay outlines can be seen on the page to provide further information regarding a literary essay and how the components are placed to maintain the structure of an essay.

Guidelines for a Literary Essay

In writing a literary essay, the following guidelines and for content winning essay should help:

Brainstorm all ideas and write them on a piece of paper and choose which will be best as your topic.
Develop a sequence to your ideas. Numbering them helps you decide on the order.
Make a flow chart in connection to the sequence of ideas starting with the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Arrange each idea in an order which you want to take place in the essay.
Ensure sequences support the flow of the essay and make the whole link with each other.
Develop a conclusion which answers the introduction of your essay.

Persuasive writing examples are seen on the page and should help you in the better understanding of a literary essay. All the samples are available for download. Just click on the download link button below a sample to access the file.

Text prompt

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Write a Literary Essay on the theme of heroism in classic literature.

Discuss the symbolism in

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Published: 02 September 2024

A qualitative dynamic analysis of the relationship between tourism and human development

Pablo Juan Cárdenas-García ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1779-392X 1 ,
Juan Gabriel Brida ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2319-5790 2 &
Verónica Segarra ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0436-3303 2

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 11 , Article number: 1125 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Development studies

This study analyzes the dynamic relationship between tourism and human development in a sample of 123 countries between 1995–2019 using a symbolic time series methodological analysis, with the number of international tourist arrivals per capita as the tourism measurement variable and the Human Development Index as the development measurement variable. The objective was to determine if a higher level of tourism specialization is related to a higher level of economic development. The definition of economic regime is used and the concept of the distance between the dynamic trajectories of the different countries analyzed is introduced to create a minimum spanning tree. In this way, groups of countries are identified that display similar behavior in terms of tourism specialization and levels of human development. The results suggest that countries with a high level of tourism specialization have a higher level of development as compared to those in which tourism has a lower specific weight. However, the largest group of countries identified is characterized by low levels of tourism specialization and economic development, which appears to translate into a poverty trap. Therefore, policies related to tourism activity expansion should be created since higher tourism levels have been linked to higher levels of human development. In the case of less developed countries, however, these projects should be financed by international organizations so that these countries can escape the poverty trap in which they are currently found.

Introduction

Traditionally, the Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP per capita) is considered the go-to variable to determine a population’s economic development and is restricted exclusively to an economic measure (Todaro and Smith, 2020 ). Recently, however, studies on development have begun incorporating other noneconomic factors, such as education and health. These factors, together with the economic criteria, provide a baseline for measuring a population’s development in broader terms (World Bank, 1991 ; Lee, 2017 ). In the search for economic activities that enable economic growth and improve the level of economic development, many countries have been especially interested in tourist activity since it is an economic activity that has a strong potential for job creation, the generation of foreign currency, and revenue increase. In short, it may be able to boost economic growth in host regions (Brida et al., 2020 ). In some cases, the development of tourism has been found to contribute to reducing inequality (Chi, 2020 ; Nguyen et al. ( 2021 )) or reducing poverty (Garza-Rodriguez ( 2019 ); Folarin, Adeniyi ( 2019 )).

In fact, what is actually important in economic policies is not only the promotion of a country’s economic growth but also, the channeling of this economic growth into improved economic development in the territory (Croes, 2012 ). This latter concept is much broader and it serves to satisfy the needs and demands of the resident population, improving its quality of life (Ranis et al., 2000 ).

In terms of the analysis of the relationship between tourism and economic growth, many studies have researched this connection. Most of them agree that a causal relationship exists between both variables, that tourism influences growth (Balaguer and Cantavella-Jordá, 2002 ; Brida et al., 2016 ), that the economic cycle influences the development of tourism (Antonakakis et al., ( 2015 ); Sokhanvar et al., 2018 ), and that there is a bidirectional relationship between tourism and economic growth (Bojanic and Lo, 2016 ; Hussain-Shahzad et al. ( 2017 )).

Given that a relationship between tourism and economic growth has been proven in the economies of host countries and national governments, despite a lack of sufficient empirical evidence, various international organizations have been promoting tourism activity as a tool to facilitate the population’s development in those host regions that attract tourist flows to their territory (OECD, 2010 ; UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( 2011 )). Such has been the case with the relationship between tourism and economic growth, with the suggestion that tourism is a tool for economic development (Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández, 2019 ).

Many studies have already analyzed the relationship between tourism and GDP per capita, finding long-term equilibrium relationships between the expansion of tourism and economic growth, whereby a higher level of tourists received means higher levels of economic growth (Akadiri et al., 2017 ). As previously mentioned, the economic development of a population, in a broad sense, and in addition to the economic variables, has to be linked to additional variables with a multidimensional content (Wahyuningsih et al., 2020 ). In this scenario, although some studies have measured development in a broader sense (Andergassen and Candela, 2013 ; Banerjee et al. 2018 ; Bojanic and Lo, 2016 ; Li et al., 2018 ), there is a clear lack of analysis of the relationship between tourism and economic development as a multidimensional variable.

In this regard, human development, and its measurement through the Human Development Index (HDI), is a multidimensional variable related to the living conditions of the resident population (income, education, and health), which has been used on many occasions (more than level of poverty or income inequality) to measure a country’s level of development (Cárdenas-García et al., 2015 ; Chattopadhyay et al., 2021 ; Croes et al., 2021 ). The link between tourism and human development arises from the economic growth generated by the expansion of tourist activity. This economic growth is used to develop policies that will improve the education and health levels of the host population (Alcalá-Ordóñez and Segarra, 2023 ).

This article analyzes the relationship between tourism and economic growth, measuring the economic growth of the countries in the broadest possible sense, with a link to the concept of human development (Cárdenas-García et al., 2015 ). As a novelty, a wide set of countries is used for this analysis. This overcomes the limitations of prior works that analyzed the relationship between tourism and human development using small country samples (Chattopadhyay et al., 2021 ).

Although distinct works have already analyzed the relationship between tourism and economic development, they tended to focus on the application of econometric tests to determine the type of causal relationship existing between these variables (Alcalá-Ordóñez and Segarra, 2023 ). This work takes a distinct approach, analyzing the qualitative dynamic behavior arising between tourism and human development. Different country groups are identified that have similar behavior within the group and, simultaneously, with differences as compared to the other groups. Thus it is possible to verify the relationship existing between tourism and human development in each of these country groups, to determine if a higher level of tourism specialization is linked to a higher level of human development.

This approach does not attempt to determine if a causal relationship exists by which tourism precedes the level of development. Rather, this approach of grouping countries aims to determine if, at similar levels of development, the country groups with a higher level of tourism specialization display higher levels of human development. This would suggest that tourism activity is an economic activity that promotes human development to a greater extent than other economic activities.

In this context, this study analyzes the dynamic relationship between tourism and economic development, considering development as a multidimensional variable. It uses a data panel consisting of 123 countries for the period between 1995–2019 and considers the diversity of countries in terms of tourism development and their economic development dynamics. To perform this dynamic analysis, the concept of economic regime is introduced (Brida, 2008 ; Cristelli et al., 2015 , Brida et al., 2020 ), and symbolic time series are used (Risso ( 2018 )).

This article contributes to the empirical literature examining the relationship between tourism and economic development. It analyzes the qualitative dynamic behavior of the countries without considering any particular model. Therefore, this analysis enables the identification of groups of countries with similar dynamics, for which economic models of the same type can be identified. The results of this study indicate that there are different groups of countries displaying similar dynamic behavior in terms of both tourism and development. These groups are characterized by their level of tourism specialization and economic development. Therefore, it is interesting to note the heterogeneity existing in the relationship between tourism and development, as well as the consequences that this situation has for both the empirical analysis and the political implications.

The rest of the document is organized as follows: the following section reviews the literature on the subject under study, section “Data” presents the data used, section “Methodology” details the methodology applied, section “Results” presents the results obtained, section “Discussion” includes a discussion of the paper, and, finally, section “Conclusions and policy implications” outlines the final conclusions and policy implications of the work.

Literature review

Economic growth versus economic development.

Traditionally, studies on development have focused on economic growth and have been based on the premise that the efficient allocation of resources maximizes growth and that the expansion of growth and consumption is a measure of population welfare (Easterly, 2002 ). However, the emergence of new studies at the end of the last century, beginning with the works by Sen ( 1990 , 1999 ), resulted in a change of focus for studies on development. They moved from an exclusive view of development linked to economic growth to the inclusion of new factors that connect it to the population’s living conditions (Croes et al., 2018 ).

Economic growth and development are distinct concepts that do not need to be linked. In other words, increased economic growth does not necessarily imply improved economic development (Croes et al., 2021 ). However, it is also true that economic growth, and the revenue generated, can be used to improve a population’s living conditions through better health care, infrastructures, and education (Banerjee et al., 2018 ; Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández, 2019 ).

In this regard, the first studies to analyze the relationship between tourist activity and the economies of host countries focused exclusively on the relationship between tourism and economic growth, using a traditional view of development that is linked to economic variables.

Tourism and economic growth

Numerous studies have analyzed the relationship between tourism and economic growth. Therefore, it is a highly relevant research area in the economic analysis of tourist activity, with three streams of perfectly defined results in which these works may be grouped (Alcalá-Ordóñez et al., 2023; Brida et al., 2016 ).

Firstly, different studies have determined that tourism development drives economic growth, identified under the tourism-led economic growth hypothesis. Both the first study to analyze this causal relationship (Balaguer and Cantavella-Jorda, 2002), as well as the later studies (Brida et al., 2016 ; Castro-Nuño et al., 2013 ; Lin et al., 2019 , Pérez-Rodríguez et al., 2021 ; Ridderstaat et al., 2016 ), have confirmed the existence of this relationship.

Secondly, other studies determined that the evolution of the economic cycle has an influence on the development of tourism, identified under the economic-driven tourism growth. These studies indicate that those economies with a greater level of investment, stability in the price level, or lower level of unemployment determine the development of tourism (Antonakakis et al. ( 2015 ); Rivera, 2017 ; Sokhanvar et al., 2018 ; Tang, Tan ( 2018 )).

Finally, a third wave of studies determined that the relationship between the development of tourism and economic growth has a bidirectional character. These studies note that the relationship between both variables is a causal bidirectional relationship (Antonakakis et al., 2019 ; Bojanic and Lo, 2016 ; Chingarande and Saayman, 2018 ; Hussain-Shahzad et al. ( 2017 ); Ridderstaat et al., 2013 ).

Human Development as a measure of development

Since the end of the last century, the scientific literature has shown that the concept of development cannot be linked exclusively to variables of economic content. Instead, development should be considered along with other non-economic factors that are related to the population’s living conditions. Therefore, it is a multidimensional concept (Alcalá-Ordóñez and Segarra, 2023 ).

When measuring development using a multidimensional perspective, this concept is often linked to human development (Cárdenas et al., 2015 ; Chattopadhyay et al., 2021 ). In this regard, the HDI is a multidimensional indicator that, in addition to considering variables of economic content, in this case per capita income, also incorporates other non-economic factors, specifically, life expectancy and educational level of the population (United Nations Development Program, 2022 ).

The HDI offers some major advantages as a measure of development over other indicators, providing a more complete vision of society’s progress and focusing not only on economic factors but also on factors related to the population’s living conditions. This makes it possible to identify inequalities that need to be addressed to promote more equitable and sustainable development (Sharma et al., 2020 ; Tan et al., 2019 ). Moreover, since it was created by the United Nations Development Program for a large group of countries, it permits homogenous comparison-making between a broad base of countries at a global level (Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández, 2019 ).

Tourism and human development

The expansion of tourism activity can influence the level of human development (Croes et al., 2021 ). The common link between these two variables is the economic impact generated by the expansion of tourist activity since this is a linked process, whereby a higher level of tourists results in an increase in income generated and thus, a higher level of economic growth (Brida et al., 2016 ). Countries can take advantage of this higher level of economic growth to develop specific policies aimed at improving the living conditions of the host population, thereby improving human development (Eluwole et al., 2022 ).

This link between tourism and human development has also been highlighted by the United Nations Tourism in its Millennium Development Goals of 2000, which declared that factors such as health and education are very important in economic development. It was suggested that tourism may improve human development given that it has an influence on these non-economic factors (UN Tourism, 2006 ).

The triple component of the HDI, the most frequently used indicator to measure economic development, has been considered in most of the studies analyzing the relationship between tourism and economic development (Alcalá-Ordóñez and Segarra, 2023 ).

Distinct studies have attempted to determine whether tourism is a tool for economic growth in host countries, although most of the studies have exclusively used economic content to measure the concept of development (Wahyuningsih et al., 2020 ). Therefore, there is a major lack of empirical studies that consider whether tourism influences development and that do so while considering development to be a multidimensional variable encompassing other factors (beyond those associated with the economy).

Some of these studies have outlined that the expansion of tourism has led to an increase in the level of development for host countries. This suggests that tourism has a positive unidirectional relationship with the living conditions of the population (Meyer and Meyer, 2016 ). Fahimi et al. ( 2018 ), examining microstates, found evidence supporting the idea that the expansion of tourism leads to an improvement in human capital. Other studies have also noted that this causal relationship between tourism and development exists, but only in developed countries (Banerjee et al., 2018 ; Bojanic and Lo, 2016 ). Some studies have suggested that only the least developed countries have benefited from the tourism industry in terms of increased economic development ratios (Cárdenas-García et al., 2015 ).

However, although it has been indicated that tourism influences economic growth, some authors have noted that tourism does not have an influence on the development of host countries (Rivera, 2017 ), or simply, that the expansion of this activity does not have any effect on human development (Croes et al., 2021 ).

As an intermediate position between these two schools of thought, some works have suggested that tourism has a positive influence on the development of the resident population, but this causal relationship is only found when certain factors exist in the host countries, such as infrastructure, environment, technology, and human capital (Andergassen and Candela, 2013 ; Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández, 2019 ; Li et al., 2018 ).

Along these same lines, in a study using panel data from 133 countries, Chattopadhyay et al. ( 2021 ) determined that, although no global relationship exists between tourism and human development for all countries, the specific characteristics of each country (level of growth, degree of urbanization, or commercial openness) are determinants for tourism to improve human development levels.

Finally, other studies in the scientific literature have looked to determine whether the relationship between tourism and development is a bidirectional causal relationship, with papers affirming the existence of this relationship between tourism and development (Pulido-Fernández and Cárdenas-García, 2021 ).

Therefore, when examining the few studies that have analyzed the relationship between tourism and development, it may be concluded that contradictory and biased results exist. This may be due to the characteristics of the samples chosen, the variables used, and the methodology employed. Currently, there is no defined school of thought in the scientific literature with regard to the ability of tourism to improve living conditions for the resident population. This contrasts with the conclusions drawn regarding the relationship between tourism and economic growth.

This gap in the scientific literature provides an opportunity for new empirical studies that can analyze the relationship between tourism and development.

In this study, data from different sources of information were used with the objective of analyzing the relationship between tourism and economic development, in accordance with the methodology proposed in the following section. The data used in the present study are available for a total of 123 countries, covering all geographical areas worldwide. The specific data for these countries are as follows, including a web link to the availability of the data to provide greater transparency:

Tourist activity. The number of international tourists received was used as a variable for measuring tourist activity. For those countries for which this data was unavailable, the number of international visitors received was used, based on annual information provided by the United Nations Tourism between 1995 and the present (UN Tourism, 2022 ).

Data on international tourists received at a country level are available at https://www.unwto.org/tourism-data/global-and-regional-tourism-performance

Economic development. The HDI, developed by the United Nations Development Program and available annually from 1990 to the present day, was used as a variable for measuring economic development (United Nations Development Program, 2022 ).

Data from the HDI for each country are available at https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI

Total population. The de facto population was used as a measurement variable and counts all residents regardless of their legal status or citizenship. This information was provided by the World Bank and is available from 1960 to the present day, on an annual basis (World Bank, 2022 ).

Data on the population of the distinct countries are available and accessible at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.totl .

Based on the data indicated above, the initial variables are transformed, specifically, in the case of tourism, through the use of the relativized per capita variable. A descriptive summary of the variables used in the analysis is presented in Table 1 . Finally, two variables have been used to analyze the relationship between tourism and economic development:

International tourists per inhabitant received in the country (number of international tourists / total population of the country), as a measure of tourism specialization. The unit of this variable is established at a relative value, by dividing the number of tourists by the population.

HDI of the country, as a measure of economic development. The unit of this variable is established at a relative value for each country, which, in all cases, is between 0 (lowest level of human development) and 1 (highest level of human development).

Regarding the tourist sector, the measurement of tourism is a subject that has generated great interest, and, on many occasions, the selection of different indicators leads to different results (Song and Wu, 2021 ). As a result, the results of the empirical analysis may be affected by the indicators used to represent the tourist demand (Fonseca and Sanchez-Rivero, 2020 ), with there being important differences between studies with respect to the tourism indicator. According to Rosselló-Nadal, He ( 2020 ), tourist arrivals or tourism expenditure are frequently used to measure tourist demand; however, when looking at the literature, differences in the results are found depending on the indicator considered. Indeed, in their study, which looked at 191 countries between 1998–2016, the authors found evidence that estimates may differ depending on the indicator used for the tourism demand of a destination (international tourist arrivals, or international tourist expenditure in this case). Other studies use indicators that do not measure the degree of tourist activity of a destination, as is the case for the number of tourist arrivals, the expenses, or the revenues. Instead, they consider an indicator that measures the degree of specialization that an economy has in tourism, for example, international tourist arrivals in per capita terms or expenditure or income as a percentage of GDP or exports. This work uses the number of international tourist arrivals, in relation to the population, and thus obtains the degree of tourism specialization of a destination (such as Dritsakis, 2012 ; Tang and Abosedra, 2016 ).

With regard to the measurement of economic development, the arrival of the HDI has resulted in a notable improvement in terms of GDP per capita, which is traditionally used to measure the progress of a country linked only to economic aspects (Lind, 2019 ). In fact, the HDI includes other noneconomic factors as it measures three key dimensions of development: a long and healthy life, being well-informed, and having a decent standard of living. This is why this index was created from the geometric mean of the normalized indices for each of the three dimensions indicated: (i) health: life expectancy at birth; (ii) education: years of schooling for adults and expected years of schooling for children; and (iii) standard of living: Gross National Income per capita (United Nations Development Program, 2022 ). Therefore, since the emergence of this index, there have been increasingly more studies that have incorporated HDI as a measurement of economic development. This variable has been shown to represent development better than other variables that are based exclusively on economic factors (Anand and Sen, 2000 ; Jalil and Kamaruddin, 2018 ; Ngoo and Tey, 2019 ; Ogwang and Abdou, 2003 ; Sajith and Malathi, 2020 ).

The time scale considered in this study covers the period between 1995–2019, in order to perform the broadest possible time analysis. On the one hand, there is an initial time restriction in terms of the data, given that the first data available on international tourist arrivals, provided by the United Nations Tourism, refer to the 1995 fiscal year. On the other hand, the data for the 2019 fiscal year are the latest in the time series analyzed. Therefore, the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis, which may have had a different impact at the country level, as well as the level of recovery in international tourist arrivals, do not affect the results of this work.

Methodology

In this work, an analysis is carried out involving the dynamics of two variables: tourism specialization and the HDI. Each of the countries considered in the analysis is represented by a two-dimensional time series of coordinates of these two variables.

In order to compare these dynamics and thereby find homogenous country groups sharing similar dynamics, it was first necessary to introduce a metric permitting this comparison. A fundamental issue in this analysis is that the units of measurement used for each variable are different and the relationship between them is unknown since tourism is measured in the number of tourists per inhabitant while the HDI is an index that varies between 0 and 1. Therefore, the frequently used Euclidean metrics are not valid for this analysis. For this reason, in this study, the problem was analyzed within the framework of complex systems by introducing the concept of “regimes”.

In economic literature, the term “regime” is used to characterize a type of behavior exhibited by one economy, which can be qualitatively distinguished from the “regime” that characterizes another economy. In this way, one regime is distinguished and differentiated from another, so that the economy as a whole may be considered a system of multiple regimes. Intuitively, an “economic regime” may be considered a set of rules governing the economy as a system and determining certain qualitative behaviors (Boehm and Punzo, 2001 ).

Regime changes, on the other hand, are associated with qualitative changes in the dynamics of an economy. Identifying and characterizing these regimes is a complex issue. For example, when working with mathematical models, a commonly used criterion is through Markov partitions (see Adler, 1998 ). Another widely used criterion when working with data is the division of the state space using various statistical indicators, such as the mean, median, etc. (see Brida and Punzo, 2003 ).

Firstly, a distance between countries was calculated to compare their trajectories; secondly, a symbolic time series analysis was used and the concept of “regime” was incorporated; as a result, the original two-dimensional series was transformed into a one-dimensional symbolic series. Then, a metric allowing for the comparison of the dynamic trajectories of the different countries was introduced; finally, a cluster analysis was performed to group the countries based on their dynamics.

The symbolic time series analysis methodology, still quite undeveloped in the field of economics, has been used in some previous works, such as that by Brida et al. ( 2020 ) that analyzes the relationship between tourism and economic growth. All analyses have been performed using RStudio software.

Time series symbolization

To identify the qualitatively relevant characteristics, the concepts of regime and regime dynamics were introduced (Brida, 2008 ; Brida et al., 2020 ). Each regime had its own economic performance model that made it qualitatively different from the rest. The partitioning of the space of tourism states and the development was established by means of annual averages of international arrivals per capita (x) and the HDI (y). The space was divided into four regions, which were determined by the annual averages of tourism and economic development, \({\bar{x}}_{t}\) and \({\bar{y}}_{t}\) respectively, with \(t=1,\ldots ,25\) . Using this partitioning of the states space into regimes, two types of dynamics are distinguished: one within each of the regimes and one of change between regimes. While the dynamic observed in each regime determines a performance model that differs from the models that act in the others, the dynamics of change from one region to another indicate where an economy is at each temporal moment. This dynamic describes performance in terms of tourism specialization and economic development in a qualitative way.

A change of regime of course signals some qualitative transformation. To explore these qualitative changes for every country, let us substitute a bi-dimensional time series \(\left\{\left({x}_{1},{y}_{1}\right),\,\left({x}_{2},{y}_{2}\right),\,\ldots ,\,\left({x}_{{\rm{T}}},{y}_{{\rm{T}}}\right)\right\}\) , by a sequence of symbols: \(s=\left\{{s}_{1},{s}_{2},\ldots ,{s}_{T}\right\}\) , such that \({s}_{t}=j\) if and only if \(\left({x}_{t},{y}_{t}\right)\) belongs to a selected state space region, \(\,{R}_{j}\) . It is defined four regions in the following way:

Regime 1: countries with above-average HDI and tourism specialization. In this regime, the most developed economies specializing in tourism are expected to be found. The majority of European countries are expected to be found in this regime; countries in other regions with a high level of tourism specialization could also be included.

Regime 2: countries with high HDI and low tourism specialization. In this regime, the most developed economies, but in which tourism activity has a less important weight in their economic base, are expected to be found. Some large countries such as the US and Germany are expected to be found in this regime. Other countries may also be found here even if they do not present similar levels of development as European countries, for example, they have higher levels in relative terms (above the sample average).

Regime 3: countries with low HDI and low tourism specialization. In this regime, economies with a lower level of development and where tourism activity is not relevant to their economic activity, are expected to be found. Countries such as China, other Asian countries, countries on the African continent, and countries in South America are expected to be included in this regime.

Regime 4: countries with low HDI and high tourism specialization. Countries with a lower level of development and a high level of tourism specialization, such as Caribbean countries and some island countries, are expected to be found in this regime.

Once the one-dimensional symbolic series is obtained, a metric is introduced that allows comparing the dynamics of the countries, and which in turn allows for obtaining homogeneous groups. Given the symbolic sequences \({\left\{{s}_{{it}}\right\}}_{t=1}^{t=T}\) and \({\{{s}_{{jt}}\}}_{t=1}^{t=T}\) the distance between two countries, i and j is given by.

Intuitively, the distance between two countries measures the number of years of regime non-coincidence during the period. If the distance between two countries is zero, the countries have been in the same regime for the entire period. On the contrary, if the distance between two countries is T, the countries have not coincided for any time during the analyzed period. If the distance between two countries is α, it means that they have not coincided for α years during the period. In other words, they have coincided for T-α years.

Using the defined distance, the hierarchical tree was created using the nearest neighbor cluster analysis method (Mantegna, 1999 ; Mantegna and Stanley, 2000 ). Using the algorithm by Kruskal ( 1956 ), the minimum spanning tree (MST) was created. This tree was created progressively, joining all the countries from the sample using a minimum distance. According to this algorithm, in the first step, the two countries whose series had the shortest distances were connected. In the second step, the countries with the second shortest distance were connected. This pattern continued until all countries were connected in one tree.

Symbolic time series analysis

Figure 1 shows the point cloud corresponding to 2019, with the respective averages of each variable. Each point represents a country in this year with its coordinates (Tourism, HDI). As is expected, the points are distributed in the four regions, showing that qualitatively the countries perform differently. A clustering in the second and third quadrants can be observed, indicating a clustering in the sections with a low level of tourism specialization, and, in turn, there are not many countries in the fourth quadrant. In other words, few countries have been considered to have a high level of tourism specialization but low levels of development, in the last year (Belize, Fiji, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, the Maldives, and Samoa).

Cloud of points of the 123 countries for the year 2019.

Table 2 shows the percentage of time spent by each of the 123 countries analyzed in each of the previously defined regimes, showing that the large majority of the countries (80 countries) remained in the same regime for the entire period or, at least, for three-quarters of the period analyzed in the same regime (16 countries). In this regard, using the symbolization of the series, 4 clear groups were identified, made up of countries that remained in the same regime for the entire period:

Group 1: made up of countries that are in regime 1 for the entire period (high level of tourism specialization and high level of development): Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Switzerland, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Singapore.

Group 2: made up of countries that are in regime 2 for the entire period (low level of tourism specialization and high level of development): Germany, Argentina, Australia, Chile, South Korea, Costa Rica, Cuba, the United States, Russia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Mexico, Panama, United Kingdom, Romania, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ukraine.

Group 3: made up of countries that are in regime 3 for the entire period (low level of tourism specialization and low level of development): Azerbaijan, Benin, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Central African Republic, China, Congo, Algeria, Egypt, Gambia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Haiti, Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Laos, Lesotho, Morocco, Mali, Myanmar, Mongolia, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, Nicaragua, Nepal, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Sudan, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, Togo, Tuvalu, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Finally, Group 4, made up of Belize and the Maldives, which are in regime 4 for the entire period (high level of tourism specialization and low level of development):

It is worth noting that according to the results obtained, regime changes can be difficult to observe. This could be a result of the fact that a regime change implies a structural change in the economy and in such a period as the one analyzed in this study (25 years), the observation of a structural change may be circumstantial in nature. In other words, the timing of structural changes seems to be slower than the tick of the chosen clock; in this case, an annual tick.

Within the group of countries that always remain in regime 1, two groups of countries can be identified. One of the groups is that in which tourism is an essential sector for the economy (like in the case of the Bahamas or Barbados, which have tourism contribution rates to GDP of above 25%), and in which tourism seems to have an influence in the high level of development. The other group is that in which, while tourism is not necessarily an essential sector for the economy, due to the existence of other economic activities, it is an important sector for development (such as Spain or Portugal, with tourism contribution rates to GDP of above 10%).

Within the group of countries that always remain in regime 2, there are fundamentally countries in which tourism has a marginal weight in relation to the level of population (like in the case of Germany, the US, and Japan), due to the lack of or little exploitation of the country’s tourism resources, which would result in development seeming to be related to other economic activities.

Within the group of countries that always remain in regime 3, there is a large group consisting of 41 countries (a third of the sample) that seem to be in a poverty trap, due to the low level of development and low level of tourism specialization. This is in such a way that the low level of development hinders the expansion of tourism activity, and, in turn, this lack of tourism development makes it difficult to increase the levels of development.

Finally, within the group of countries that always remain in regime 4, there are only two countries found, which are characterized by a high level of tourism specialization but have not transformed this into an improvement in development, possibly due to the existence of certain factors that hinder this relationship.

Therefore, the first issue to note is the little mobility that countries have in terms of their classification between the different regimes, given that 80 countries (two-thirds of the sample) remained in the same regime during the 25 years analyzed, which seems to show that the variables are somewhat stable, and thus justifies the fact that no major changes were observed during the period analyzed. This behavior reveals that the homogeneity in the tourism and development dynamic is the rule and not the exception.

In fact, only 27 countries, out of the 123 countries analyzed, are in a different regime for at least a quarter of the period: Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Botswana, Canada, Colombia, Slovakia, Eswatini, Finland, Fiji, Hungary, Jamaica, Jordan, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Saint Lucia, Sweden, Thailand, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, and Samoa.

In this regard, Fig. 2 shows the time evolution of the symbolic series for some selected countries. As can be noted, there are some countries, like Brazil, that always have a low level of tourism specialization and alternate between periods of high and low economic development, with it seeming as though there is consolidation as being a low HDI country in recent years (until 2002, Brazil had an above average level of development but, after it was hit by a crisis, the country moved to the low development regime. Then, in 2013, it managed to return to the high HDI regime, albeit temporarily as in 2016, in the midst of a political and economic crisis, it returned to the low development regime, where it currently remains). This is similar to what happened in Fiji, insofar as it was almost always specialized in tourism and alternated HDI, consolidating itself in Regime 4 of the low HDI. As such, it seems as though certain countries define their behavior according to the degree of tourism specialization; in this case, not particularly specialized countries.

Top panel: Brazil (left) and Fiji (right). Bottom panel: Latvia (left) and Eswatini (right).

However, the behavior of Latvia or Eswatini seems to be determined by HDI and not by tourism specialization. As to be expected, Latvia remained always in regimes 1 and 2 with a high HDI while Eswatini remained in regimes 3 and 4 with a low HDI. In both cases, they alternated periods of high and low specialization in tourism.

Grouping homogeneous countries

In the case analyzed, there are many countries with zero distance. These are the countries that have the same symbolic representation, that is, the regimes dynamics are coincidental given that these countries always remain in the same regime. Therefore, there are three groups that start to form with countries that have zero distance (countries that are always placed in regimes 1, 2, and 3), and a small group, formed by Belize and the Maldives, which are the only countries that remained in regime 4 for the entire period analyzed. According to this algorithm, 6 groups were obtained, while some countries were not included in any of the groups as they were considered to be “outliers”.

Specifically, there was a graph with 123 nodes corresponding to each country and 122 links; however, given that there were several countries with the same dynamic (the distance between these countries is zero), each of these groups is represented in a single node; that is, the countries that always remained in regime 1 were considered together as one single node, with the same happening for the remaining three groups of countries with identical dynamics (groups 2, 3, and 4). Therefore, in this case, there is a node representing 18 countries from group A and another node (both pink) that represents multiple countries; the Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Mauritius, and Slovenia, which all share the same dynamic (they always remain in regime 1, except in 1995). There is a node representing 19 countries from group B (light blue), another node representing 41 countries from group C (green), and a final node representing Belize and Maldives in group D. In this way, 80 countries are represented in four nodes. To complete the tree, 38 other nodes, each corresponding to a country, were established. Using Kruskal’s algorithm ( 1956 ), the MST is built, in which all nodes are connected in a single tree from the minimum distances. In this way, a tree is created having links that connect the nodes to represent the minimum distances between them (a longer arrow indicates a longer distance).

Figure 3 shows the MST. It is worth noting the central position that these multiple nodes have within the groups, that is, nodes that represent a group of countries with the same dynamics. The structure of the MST seems to be almost linear; moreover, while group C (green) is the most numerous, it is also the most compact of the large groups.

(Nodes: Pink group A/Light blue group B/Green group C/Yellow group D/Orange group E/Blue group F/Red Outliers. Distances according to arrow color: black 1/red 2/light blue 3/green 4/blue 5/orange 6/pink 7/gray 8/violet 9).

Figure 4 shows the geographic distribution of the different groups. There are 6 groups (3 large and 3 small), while some countries are not included in any of these groups, as they are considered to be “outliers”:

Group A: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bahamas, Barbados, Switzerland, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Croatia, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Mauritius, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Uruguay. This group is made up of countries that predominantly remained in regime 1, that is, in general, these are countries with a high tourism specialization and high economic development.

Group B: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Germany, Ecuador, United Kingdom, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Mexico, North Macedonia, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, United States. This group is made up of countries that predominantly remained in regime 2, that is, in general, these are countries with a low tourism specialization and high economic development.

Group C: Azerbaijan, Benin, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Central African Republic, China, Congo, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Egypt, Gambia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Haiti, Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Laos, Lesotho, Mali, Morocco, Myanmar, Mongolia, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, Nicaragua, Nepal, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Sudan, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, Togo, Tuvalu, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This group is made up of countries that remained the majority of the time in regime 3, that is, in general, these are countries with a low tourism specialization and low economic development. With the exception of the Dominican Republic and South Africa (96% and 92%, respectively), all countries remained in regime 3 for the entire period.

Group D: Belize and the Maldives. This group is made up of the two countries that always remained in regime 4, that is, in general, these are countries with a high tourism specialization and low economic development.

Group E: Armenia, Moldova, Thailand, and Turkey. This group has the particular characteristic of having low tourism specialization throughout the period but alternating between a high level of development (regime 2) and a low level of development (regime 3).

Group F: Botswana, Jamaica, and Tunisia. This group is made up of countries that fundamentally remained in regime 4, that is, these are countries with a high tourism specialization and low economic development, however, unlike group D, they moved during the period analyzed through other regimes.

Outliers: Canada, Fiji, Saint Lucia, Sweden, Eswatini, and Samoa. These countries presented different dynamics and were not integrated into any of the previously-defined groups.

(Note: Pink: group A/Light blue: group B/Green: group C/Yellow: group D/Orange: group E/Blue: group F/Red: Outliers).

As can be seen, group A, which consists of countries with a high tourism specialization and high economic development, is basically made up of European countries, some Asian countries, and Uruguay (the only country in the Americas to be part of this group).

The countries in group B, that is, those countries with a good level of economic development, but a low specialization in the sector, are more geographically dispersed. This group consists of some European countries (in particular, Eastern European countries), a large part of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the US, Australia, and some Asian countries.

Group C, that is, those countries with a low tourism specialization and low economic development, consists of the vast majority of African countries, as well as a significant number of Asian countries, in addition to Bolivia and Paraguay in Latin America, as well as some countries in Central America.

The countries in Group D, that is, those countries that had a high tourism specialization but a low level of economic development throughout the period analyzed, as well as those in Group F, which were also in this regime for most of the period, do not have a uniform geographic pattern, since they are located on different continents.

Finally, the countries in Group E, that is, those countries with a low tourism specialization and alternating levels of economic development, are also geographically dispersed between Europe and Asia.

As can be seen in Table 3 both Group A and Group B are made up of countries with a high level of development; however, the countries in Group A, which also have a high level of tourism specialization, on average, have a significantly higher level of development than the countries in Group B, where the level of tourism specialization is low. These results appear to show that in terms of those countries specialized in tourism (Group A), the link with development is higher than for those countries that have achieved high levels of development due to the development of other economic activities.

Similar results can be found when comparing the data from Group C (countries with a low level of tourism specialization and low level of economic development) with the data from Groups D and F (countries with a high level of tourism specialization and low level of economic development). This is because, despite the level of development being low in all the countries, in the Group D and F countries, the level of development is significantly higher than in Group C countries. This appears to show that for those countries specialized in tourism (Groups D and F), the link with development is greater than for those countries that rely on other sectors as the basis of their economy.

Tourism’s relevance lies not only in its contribution to economic growth but also in the fact that the improved economic growth generated by the expansion of tourism activity may translate into improved living conditions for the host population. Due to this chained process, many countries have opted for this economic activity with the aim of improving income, education, and health. In short, they hope to increase their levels of human development.

Although distinct works have analyzed the relationship between tourism and human development by applying causality tests to determine the type of relationship between these variables, this study adopts a different approach. It analyzes the qualitative dynamic behavior between tourism and human development, to identify clusters of countries that display similar behavior with regard to this relationship.

Firstly, it is necessary to note the little movement there is of the countries between the different regimes, which indicates great stability, given that 80 countries (two-thirds of the sample) remained in the same regime throughout the entire period analyzed (1995–2019). These results regarding the stability of the countries in the different regimes differ significantly from the results obtained in other studies that have used the same technique for the analysis of the dynamic relationship between variables (Brida et al., 2020 ). This is because even when there is a movement of the countries between regimes, this happens, at most, between two or three regimes (Jordan and Samoa are the only exceptions, passing through all four regimes).

Furthermore, the results appear to show that groups of countries with a higher level of tourism specialization have higher levels of human development. Therefore, tourism is configured as an effective tool to improve development levels, as previously stated in works such as that of Cárdenas-García et al. ( 2015 ) conducting a joint analysis with data from 144 countries or Bojanic and Lo ( 2016 ), whose global analysis referred to a sample of 187 countries.

Specifically, these results are found both in the group of countries with the highest level of development, (countries of Group A versus the countries of Group B), as previously revealed in works such as that of Meyer and Meyer ( 2016 ) analyzing South Africa and that of Tan et al. ( 2019 ) analyzing Malaysia. These results were also found in the case of countries with a lower level of development (countries of Group D and F as compared to the countries of Group C), as previously suggested by works, such as that of Sharma et al. ( 2020 ) examining India or Croes ( 2012 ) analyzing Nicaragua.

However, despite these majority results, countries have been identified that, despite having an important tourism specialization (Belize, Botswana, Jamaica, Maldives, and Tunisia), had a low level of human development. This has not allowed for the high level of tourism specialization to become a tool to improve the living conditions of the population in these countries.

This exception may be due to the link between tourism and human development, which, in addition to being affected by the level of tourism specialization, also depends on the destination’s characteristics. These characteristics include the provision of infrastructure, the level of education, and the existing investment climate in the receiving countries, as previously suggested by Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández ( 2019 ), or by the level of economic growth, the development of the urbanization process, or the degree of commercial openness of the receiving countries, as identified by Chattopadhyay et al. ( 2021 ).

Conclusions and policy implications

Distinct international organizations have shown that what is really important is not the contribution of tourism to economic growth, but rather, that this economic growth generated by the expansion of tourism activity permits the improvement of living conditions of the host population (EC, 2018 ; IADB - Inter-American Development Bank ( 2020 ); UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( 2020 )).

Given the importance of economic development for the host countries, empirical studies that analyze the relationship between tourism and economic development have begun to emerge. These works mainly link the multidimensional concept of development with human development, measured by the HDI. Here, the link between tourism and human development is produced through the economic growth generated by the expansion of tourism activity. This economic growth is used to develop policies to improve the host population’s education and health levels.

However, few such studies exist, and the scientific literature does not reveal a defined trend with regard to this relationship. Furthermore, most of these existing works rely on causality analyses to determine whether there is a relationship between tourism and human development. They do not analyze whether having a higher degree of tourism specialization, for groups of countries with similar levels of development, implies a higher level of human development, which would suggest that tourism promotes development to a greater extent than other economic activities.

Due to the methodology used, this empirical work cannot determine the type of relationship existing between tourism and development, that is, whether there is a unidirectional or bidirectional relationship between both variables. However, it does allow us to determine if countries with a higher level of tourism specialization have a higher level of development than those specializing in other productive activities.

This study aimed to contribute to the empirical discussion about the relationship between tourism and development through the use of a non-parametric and non-linear approach; specifically, the qualitative dynamic behavior of these two variables was compared using the definition of economic regime and clustering tools based on the concept of hierarchical and MST (Mantegna, 1999 ; Kruskal, 1956 ).

The results seem to indicate that tourism is an economic activity that can promote human development more than other economic activities. Indeed, at similar levels of human development, both in the case of countries with a high level of development (countries in Group A versus countries in Group B) and in the case of countries with a low level of development (countries in Groups D-F versus countries in Group C), the country groups with a higher level of tourism specialization have higher human development values than those countries specialized in other productive activities.

Therefore, public administrations should develop specific actions to increase the level of tourism specialization since tourism is a strategic tool that improves human development levels, as compared to other economic activities. It is necessary to invest in the improvement and expansion of tourism infrastructure, including the improvement of transportation systems in host destinations, increasing and improving the supply of accommodations and basic tourism-related services. Moreover, an attractive offer should be provided, both in terms of resources and attraction factors. This includes complementary services to attract a greater number of tourist flows, while developing destination promotion campaigns and, therefore, ensuring greater tourism specialization.

It should also be noted that, of the identified country groups, the most numerous one is that which includes countries from Group C, which is made up of 43 countries (approximately a third of the sample). This cluster is characterized by low tourism specialization and a low level of economic development, which seems to translate into a poverty trap, given that the low level of development prevents the expansion of the tourism activity, and, in turn, this lack of tourism development makes it difficult to increase the levels of development.

Policies should be developed that consider the lack of financial resources of these countries to carry out investment projects. International organizations and institutions linked to development, such as the United Nations Development Program, Inter-American Development Bank, or World Bank, should finance specific projects so that these countries may receive investments related to the improvement and expansion of tourism infrastructure, so as to improve human development through this activity. Suitable regulatory frameworks should be established in these countries, to encourage public-private collaboration for the development of tourism projects. In this way, private investments could make up for the lack of public financing in these destinations.

The analysis performed in this work has also identified groups of countries that, despite their high degree of tourism specialization, do not have high levels of human development (Belize, Botswana, Jamaica, Maldives, and Tunisia). This highlights the importance of identifying factors or characteristics that provide the destination with ideal initial conditions to permit the economic impacts generated by the expansion of tourism to be channeled into an improvement in human development. In addition to being conditioned by the host country’s level of tourism specialization, the link between tourism and human development also depends on infrastructure provision, education level, investment climate, urbanization level, and the degree of commercial openness. Although this current of scientific literature has not been widely studied, it has been addressed by some works analyzing the relationship between tourism and human development (Cárdenas-García and Pulido-Fernández, 2019 ; Chattopadhyay et al., 2021 ).

Policies established by public administrations should consider a dual objective: on the one hand, investing in the improvement and expansion of the tourism infrastructure and, on the other hand, increasing and improving the factors found to be determinant in configuring tourism as a tool for human development. Given that there are entities investing in projects linked to tourism aimed at improving the living conditions of the resident population, the failure to act on the determinant factors of this relationship could result in inefficient policies in terms of the allocation of resources linked to improved development.

Finally, this study has certain limitations, including the variables used to measure tourism specialization and economic development. With regard to tourism, it has been shown that changing the indicator used leads to differences in the results obtained. In terms of economic development, while other factors such as poverty level, quality of life, or income inequality are related to development, human development, and its measurement through HDI, is the most frequently used indicator to measure it. Moreover, the short period analyzed (1995–2019) is another limitation. There is a restriction in the initial period used since it is the first year in which data were available on development and this may determine the small variability between countries among the different regimes. Another limitation lies in the fact that it does not analyze the characteristics of the destination as a determinant in the relationship between tourism and human development, in accordance with the new current of the scientific literature. In terms of methodology, the choice of the measure used for the symbolization of the series can affect the results. For example, the mean may be influenced by outliers in the data, and this can be relevant for certain variables, such as tourism, which displays a high degree of variation. It would be interesting to perform the same exercise using other measures for the symbolization of the series, such as the truncated mean, the median, or some type of threshold.

Future lines of research may highlight the fact that this study consists of an analysis at the country level, although it is clear that the impacts of tourism are produced in the territory at the regional and local levels. As a result, it may be interesting to replicate this work at the regional level using different countries as an analysis, depending on the availability of such data.

Moreover, as a continuation of this study, in addition to the degree of tourism specialization, it may be interesting to analyze the type of tourism received by each of the groups of countries that have been identified. In other words, to examine whether the characteristics of the type of tourism received (accommodations, motivations, or level of expenditure) in each cluster also determine the relationship between tourism and human development. Furthermore, it may be interesting to introduce the influence of other factors on the relationship between tourism and development into the analysis of this relationship, as discussed previously in the limitations.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Cárdenas-García, P.J., Brida, J.G. & Segarra, V. A qualitative dynamic analysis of the relationship between tourism and human development. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1125 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03663-5

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Received : 11 March 2024

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Published : 02 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03663-5

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PDF HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY
Microsoft Word - Literary analysis.rtf. The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an ...
Literary Analysis: Sample Essay
Literary Analysis: Sample Essay. We turn once more to Joanna Wolfe's and Laura Wilder's Digging into Literature: Strategies for Reading, Writing, and Analysis (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016) in order to show you their example of a strong student essay that has a strong central claim elucidated by multiple surface/depth arguments ...
PDF HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY
The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs (at least 3 paragraphs for a 500-750 word essay) that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story,
PDF Writing a Literary Analysis
ort a main idea or purpose. When writing a literary analysis, you are not just identifying elements in a text, but analyz. fy the Author's Purpose Identifying the author's purpose will serve as the th. sis/backbone of your paper. There will be many purposes uncovered as you read, but choose the. ne that speaks most to you. This is also def.
12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays
Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap. City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative. Table of contents. Example 1: Poetry. Example 2: Fiction. Example 3: Poetry. Attribution. The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.
PDF Discovering Evidence for a Literary Analysis Essay
Discovering Evidence for a Literary Analysis Essay, Fall 2014. 2 of 6. meaning of a literary work. This handout focuses on how to write an explication essay because explication is the foundation for literary analysis, whether the essay be a critical argument or an explication. Literary analysis begins with a study of form and effect.
Literary Analysis Essay
A literary analysis essay is an important kind of essay that focuses on the detailed analysis of the work of literature. The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to explain why the author has used a specific theme for his work. Or examine the characters, themes, literary devices, figurative language, and settings in the story.
How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay
Table of contents. Step 1: Reading the text and identifying literary devices. Step 2: Coming up with a thesis. Step 3: Writing a title and introduction. Step 4: Writing the body of the essay. Step 5: Writing a conclusion. Other interesting articles.
PDF Outline Structure for Literary Analysis Essay
3. Body: The body of your paper should logically and fully develop and support your thesis. a. Each body paragraph should focus on one main idea that supports your thesis statement. b. These paragraphs include: i. A topic sentence - a topic sentence states the main point of a paragraph: it serves as a mini-thesis for the paragraph.
PDF A Guide to the Literary-Analysis Essay
example, in Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet have no idea what tragedies lie ahead when they fall so passionately and impetuously in love. 7) MAJOR THESIS: a statement that provides the subject and overall opinion of your essay. For a literary analysis your major thesis must (1) relate to the theme of the
PDF Literary Analysis Sample Paper
This paragraph is a great example of the paper's author showing the reader how and why the supporting material supports the paper's thesis. 6. Literary Analysis Sample Paper August 2016. The conclusion of the analysis reiterates the paper's thesis and sums up the moral produced by the theme of the book. Notes:
PDF Academic Writing Guide: How to Write a Literary Analysis What is a
Organizing Your Literary Analysis A literary analysis can be organized the same as a standard essay, with an introduction, a body and a conclusion. However, remember that a literary analysis will focus on how the literary elements and devices used in a piece of literature make the story special or significant, and you will need to support those ...
PDF What is Literary Analysis?
Literary analysis guide for: novels poetry plays short stories The Writing Center @ PVCC Writing Literary Analysis 3 Principles of a Literary Analysis Essay 1. Contains a central idea or thesis that states the essay's overall point and guides its development. 2. Has several paragraphs with topic sentences that grow logically from the
Student Essay Example 2 (Literary Analysis) in MLA
Attributions. Images and video created by Dr. Sandi Van Lieu and licensed under CC BY NC SA. Student essay example by Janelle Devin and used with permission. Previous: Sample Paper in MLA and APA. Next: YC Writing Resources.
PDF Literary Analysis Essay Outline
State the thesis and projected plan in the last 1-2 sentences. The body consists of 3 paragraphs. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that states an idea related to the thesis. Organize your essay around ideas relating to your critical lens. In the body of your essay, incorporate information from your primary and secondary sources (novel ...
PDF Writing a Literary Analysis
A literary analysis is often referred to as "literary criticism." When you write a literary analysis, or criticism, you're not really critiquing, per se. Instead, you're looking at a piece of literature through a critical lens, trying to understand something about the piece itself. As a literary critic, you offer readers a new way to ...
PDF Writing a Literary Analysis Paper
The paper is framed as a summary rather than as a literary analysis.) 6. Make an extended list of evidence. Find more evidence from the text to support the working thesis. Then select the evidence that will be used in the paper. 7. Refine the thesis. Make sure the thesis fits with the evidence that has been presented. 8.
Literary Analysis Essay
Explore a collection of 30+ literary analysis essay examples in Word, Google Docs, and PDF formats. Learn how to analyze literature effectively, understand literary devices, create a strong thesis, and provide a comprehensive conclusion. Discover the importance of context, analogies, and literature reviews in crafting a well-rounded analysis.
PDF Example of a Literary Analysis Essay
The crushing disappointment kills. Mrs. Mallard. Published in the late eighteen hundreds, the oppressive nature of marriage. in "The Story of an Hour" may well be a reflection of, though not exclusive to, that era. Though Chopin relates Mrs. Mallard's story, she does not do so in first person. Chopin reveals the story through a narrator's voice.
Example of an Insightful Literary Analysis Essay
Get a sense of what to do right with this literary analysis essay example that will offer inspiration for your own assignment. ... Click Image to View and Download PDF. Image Credits. DESCRIPTION Literary Analysis Essay Example SOURCE Created by Beth Wiggins for LoveToKnow
PDF Sample Literary Analysis Essay Outline
Clear topic sentence - make sure it relates to your writing task. Sample topic sentence: "Some people in this society have positive attitudes toward the lottery. Give explanation, examples, and quotes from the story to support your ideas: "Old Man Warner accepts the lottery without question because he believes in the power of tradition ...
Literary Analysis Essay A Rose For Emily (pdf)
English document from William James College, 1 page, Literary Analysis Essay A Rose For Emily Crafting a literary analysis essay, particularly on the topic of "A Rose for Emily," poses a multifaceted challenge that requires a delicate balance of critical thinking, literary comprehension, and effective commu
PDF Lewisuwritingcenter.wordpress.com A Simplified Guide
aining or interpreting how its parts work together. A literary analysis is a paper on one, or many, of the key elements i. a text and how they support a main idea or purpose. When writing a literary analysis, you are not just identifying eleme. lements. Step 1: Identify the Author's Purpose Identifying the author's pur.
Literary Essay
For students, it is a way to gauge their knowledge of books or stories they read. Sample essay outlines can be seen on the page to provide further information regarding a literary essay and how the components are placed to maintain the structure of an essay. Guidelines for a Literary Essay. In writing a literary essay, the following guidelines ...
Essay About Literature (pdf)
Essay About Literature Crafting an essay on the topic "Essay About Literature" may seem deceptively simple at first glance, as one might assume that the vast expanse of literature offers a myriad of possibilities for exploration. However, delving into this subject proves to be a challenging endeavor that demands a nuanced understanding of literary theory, critical analysis, and the ability to ...
A qualitative dynamic analysis of the relationship between ...
This study analyzes the dynamic relationship between tourism and human development in a sample of 123 countries between 1995-2019 using a symbolic time series methodological analysis, with the ...

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A qualitative dynamic analysis of the relationship between tourism and human development

Introduction

Literature review

Tourism and economic growth

Human Development as a measure of development

Tourism and human development

Methodology

Time series symbolization

Symbolic time series analysis

Grouping homogeneous countries

Conclusions and policy implications

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