Tourist Intensity in the World, 1995–2015: Two Measurement Proposals

The work emphasizes the importance of measuring the tourist intensity of the economies that are oriented to tourism activity, with the aim of avoiding subjective arguments and being more related to perception than with the empirical contrast of the data. A tourist intensity index is proposed, which is made up of four essential variables: GDP, tourist spending, population, and the number of tourists. However, at the same time, it is complemented by a measure of tourist density, which helps to better understand the proposed index. This allows for the classification of countries according to the resulting index, and to calibrate their position in the set of tourist economies. This can be very useful for the application of economic policies aimed at correcting externalities that are generated in the advanced development of mass tourism.