The Economic Role of Tourism in European Countries’ Sustainable Development

Abstract With the coronacrisis caused by the COVID–19 pandemic, the tourism industry in Europe suffered the most in 2020, experiencing huge losses, lay-offs of workers, mass bankruptcies of firms, etc. Undoubtedly, the tourism economy contributes to the sustainable development of European countries, but how? The answer to this question is contained in the proposed study. Algorithm method, correlation and regression analysis, and non-linear programming were used to address the economic contribution of tourism to sustainable development. The modelling of the multiple power regression equation was based on freely available official statistical data from 40 European countries for the year 2020. A multiple power regression equation modelling algorithm for the impact of tourism on the sustainable development of European countries has been proposed and validated. The challenge of maximising the Sustainable Development Goals Index is set and solved. It is justified that in order to increase the average European level of sustainable development by 1 % in the post-pandemic period, the average annual number of tourists per European country should be increased by 14 %, the tourist attractiveness of destinations should be increased to increase revenues per tourist by 17 %, and the sectoral structure of the European economy should be optimised so as to reduce dependence on tourist revenues by 0.4 percentage points.