An “Extended method” for measuring intersectoral linkages: The case of the Greek tourism sector

This paper assesses the intersectoral linkages of the tourism sector of the Greek economy using an extended version of the hypothetical extraction method, which allows the intersectoral effects of the labor force reproduction process to be taken into account, and data from the symmetric input-output table for the year 2015. The findings of our analysis show that the role of tourism in the Greek economy is more as a seller of inputs in other sectors than as a buyer of inputs, a finding that can be reduced to the high participation of the tourism product in the labor force reproduction process. In other words, an increase in demand for the tourism product cannot bring about a strong growth in the economy, since the sector's dependence on inputs from other sectors for its operation is low and, therefore, the increase in the tourism product does not lead to a large increase in the production of the other sectors. On the contrary, an increase in demand for the products of other sectors will lead to a strong growth of the tourism sector, since the dependence of other sectors on inputs of the tourism sector is high. The interdependencies in the production structure of the Greek economy show that the tourism sector cannot be the basis of a growth policy (i.e. by stimulating tourism demand), but, conversely, the growth of the Greek economy will lead to a significant increase in its tourism sector.