Economic Value of Tourism Through Human Capital Gains

Abstract

Leisure tourism can be analyzed as a mechanism to rebuild human capital depleted by work. Human capital is an essential input to human economies, and possesses a corresponding economic value. Therefore, tourism possesses an economic value additional to expenditure and multipliers, which can be seen as investments in increasing human capital as an asset. Calculating the financial value of human capital gains is likely to prove a more powerful political tool for the tourism sector, than current political perceptions as discretionary leisure.