Emporical Tourism Research in International Context
According to Oh (2005) and Chen and Chiou-Wei (2010), three hypotheses can be identified regarding the trade-economic growth relationship-namely, the tourism-led economic growth hypothesis,the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis, and the reciprocal causal hypothesis. The tourism-led economic growth hypothesis recognizes a unidirectional causal relationship from tourism expansion to economic growth. From the economicdriven tourism growth hypothesis, a unidirectional causal relationship from economic growth to tourism expansion is evident. However, the reciprocal hypothesis maintains that the causal relationship between economic growth and tourism expansion appears to be bidirectional, implying that a push in both areas is beneficial.