Purpose Previous studies on tourism input-output (IO) primarily focus on a single year’s snapshot or utilize outdated IO coefficients. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the multi-period development of regional tourism capacities and its influence on the magnitude of the industry’s regional economic contribution. The paper highlights the importance of applying up-to-date IO coefficients to avoid estimation bias typically found in previous studies on tourism’s economic contribution. Design/methodology/approach For the period 2008-2014, national IO tables are regionalized to estimate direct and indirect economic effects for output, employment, income and other value-added deffects. A comparison of Leontief inverse matrices is conducted to quantify estimation bias when using outdated models for analyzing tourism’s economic contribution. Findings On the one hand, economic linkages strengthened, especially for labour-intensive sectors. On the other hand, sectoral recessions in 2012 and 2014 led to an economy-wide decline of indirect effects, although tourists’ consumption was still increasing. Finally, estimation bias observed after applying an outdated IO model is quantified by approximately US$4.1m output, 986 jobs full-time equivalents, US$24.8m income and US$14.8m other value-added effects. Research limitations/implications Prevailing assumptions on IO modelling and regionalization techniques aim for more precise survey-based approaches and computable general equilibrium models to incorporate net changes in economic output. Results should be cross-validated by means of qualitative interviews with industry representatives. Practical implications Additional costs for generating IO tables on an annual base clearly pay off when considering the improved accuracy of estimates on tourism’s economic contribution. Originality/value This study shows that tourism IO studies should apply up-to-date IO models when estimating the industry’s economic contribution. It provides evidence that applying outdated models involve the risk of estimation biases, because annual changes of multipliers substantially influence the magnitude of effects.

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Traditional measurements of tourism's economic impact refer to primary and secondary effects that are typically quantified through input-output (IO) methodology. From a sustainable regional development perspective, however, economic impact analyses are criticised for their one-dimensional analysis focussing mainly on growth-oriented effects represented by aggregates for output, employment, income or tax. Although existing literature comprises various extensions of IO models, the focus of these models is restricted to indicators at a high aggregate level. Thus, distributional or other socio-economically important aspects related to the tourism workforce are seldom discussed. In our approach to study tourism's impacts over a nine-year period, we consider macro-and meso-level perspectives and disaggregate tourism's impact on regional employment and income for particular occupational areas in the Swedish region of J€ amtland. Results indicate weakening employment effects; relatively low but increasing income-inequalities; and increasing shares of elementary positions with precarious working conditions despite para-industrial initiatives from tourism institutions to develop the industry. By enhancing traditional tourism economic impact methodology, we hope that our approach is supportive in putting the tourism workforce at the heart of the regional development and tourism sustainability discourse.